A LANGUAGE ATTITUDE ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL US SPEECH: IS NORTHERN US ENGLISH NOT FREINDLY ENOUGH?

Authors

  • Dennis R. Preston

Keywords:

Perceptual dialectology, language attitudes, regional dialectology, social psychology of language, linguistic (in)security, folk linguistics

Abstract

In a number of publication in the area of 'perceptual dialectology' (e.g., Preston 1989), 1have complained that ‘classical' language attitude surveys do not take into consideration the Respondent’s folk linguistic awareness of varies (neither of the identificational strategies they use in 'locating ' speakers nor of the 'mental maps ' they have of regional speech areas). In this study I show how previous findings from perceptual dialectology may he used in an attitude research study and discuss the results of such a study of young Northern US (Michigan) respondents with regard to their own and to 'Southern' US speech. In conclusion, I suggest that such linguistically 'secure' speakers may be assigning even greater affective value to stigmatized areas than similar speakers from such areas have in past surveys.

Author Biography

Dennis R. Preston

Department of Linguistics and Germanic. Slavic. Asian and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, M1 48824.1027 (USA) preston@pilot.msu.edu

Issue

Section

Artículos