The Unifying Aspects of Cultures

SECTION:

Standard Variations and Conceptions of Language in Various Language Cultures

Meryem Sen / Nazli Baykal
Language Attitudes towards non-standard accented speakers by standard-accented speakers in the Turkish context: A social psychological approach

This study aims to observe how standard-accented speakers evaluate non-standard-accented speakers of Turkish, and to provide a social psychological explanation to language attitudes of Turkish men and women in this context. We try to find out to what extent gender and non-standard accented speech affect language attitudes of standard-accented speakers. The database is composed of in-depth interview results with 10 male and 10 female students attending Kocaeli University, English Language and Literature Department, Turkey.

Language attitude research, gaining importance from the perspective of critical linguistics and language planning, suggest that reactions of listeners to non-standard accented speech have cognitive as well as emotional bases (Wilson&Bayard 1992; Cargile& Giles 1997). Many language attitude studies regard 'attitude' as 'response' to 'stimulus' (Giles&Johnson 1987) and have used matched-guise technique(Lambert, 1967) to explain language attitudes of listeners'. Yet, studies using this technique have fallen short in understanding language attitudes as they did not take into account the listeners' social identities and emotions (Sebastian et.al 1980; Giles et.al 1995). However, as stated by Tajfel and Turner (1986) and Giles and Johnson(1987), social identity does count in human interaction and communication. Thus, the main concern of the present study is the effect of non-standard accented speakers' social identity on standard-accented speakers' emotive states, which we have taught to be better explained through social psychological approach to language attitudes.

Overall, our subjects had established a relationship between non-standard accent , non-standard accented speaker and social identity. Compared with the male subjects, female subjects were more biased in associating negative traits to non-standard accented speakers. Non-standard accent was accepted as a different social variety but when standard accent was concerned , it was not valued highly. A social psychological approach gave us a better insight in the interpretation of the collected data.

THE UNIFYING ASPECTS OF CULTURES