18.746, Diss: Lang Acquisition/Socioling: McKenzie: 'A Quantitative Study ...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-18-746. Fri Mar 09 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 18.746, Diss: Lang Acquisition/Socioling: McKenzie:  'A Quantitative Study ...'

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1)
Date: 08-Mar-2007
From: Robert McKenzie < rmm at arts.gla.ac.uk >
Subject: A Quantitative Study of the Attitudes of Japanese Learners towards Varieties of English Speech: Aspects of the Sociolinguistics of English in Japan 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:38:55
From: Robert McKenzie < rmm at arts.gla.ac.uk >
Subject:  A Quantitative Study of the Attitudes of Japanese Learners towards Varieties of English Speech: Aspects of the Sociolinguistics of English in Japan 
 


Institution: University of Edinburgh 
Program: Linguistics and English Language 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2006 

Author: Robert M McKenzie

Dissertation Title: A Quantitative Study of the Attitudes of Japanese Learners
towards Varieties of English Speech: Aspects of the
Sociolinguistics of English in Japan 

Dissertation URL:  http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk//handle/1842/1519

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)
                     Japanese (jpn)


Dissertation Director(s):
John E. Joseph
Graeme Trousdale

Dissertation Abstract:

Language attitude studies focussing specifically on native speaker
perceptions of varieties of English speech have demonstrated consistently
that standard varieties tend to be evaluated positively in terms of
competence/status whilst non-standard varieties are generally rated higher
in terms of social attractiveness/solidarity.


However, the great majority of studies which have investigated non-native
attitudes have tended to measure evaluations of 'the English language',
conceptualised as a single entity, thus ignoring the substantial regional
and social variation within the language. This is somewhat surprising
considering the importance of attitudes towards language variation in the
study of second language acquisition and in sociolinguistics. More
specifically, there is a dearth of in-depth quantitative attitude research
in Japan concentrating specifically on social evaluations of varieties of
English, as the limited number of previous studies conducted amongst
Japanese learners have either been qualitative in design or too small in
scale. Moreover, the findings of these studies have been somewhat inconclusive.


The present quantitative study, employing a range of innovative direct and
indirect techniques of attitude measurement, investigated the perceptions
of 558 Japanese university students of six varieties of English speech. The
results obtained suggest that Japanese learners are able to differentiate
between speech varieties within a single language of which they are not
native speakers and hold different and often complex attitudes towards (a)
standard/non-standard and (b) native/non-native varieties of English
speech. For instance, the learners rated both the standard and non-standard
varieties of inner circle speech more highly than varieties of expanding
circle English in terms of prestige. In contrast, it was found that the
learners expressed higher levels of solidarity with the Japanese speaker of
heavily-accented English and intriguingly, with speakers of non-standard
varieties of UK and US English than with speakers of standard varieties of
inner circle English. Moreover, differences in the Japanese students'
gender, level of self-perceived competence in English, level of exposure to
English and attitudes towards varieties of Japanese all had significant
main effects on perceptions of varieties of English speech. However, the
regional provenance of the informants was not found to be significant in
determining their language attitudes. The results also imply that Japanese
learners retain representations of varieties of English speech and draw
upon this resource, whether consciously or unconsciously, in order to
identify and evaluate (speakers of) these speech varieties.


The findings are discussed in relation to the pedagogical and language
planning implications for the choice of linguistic model in English
language teaching both inside and outwith Japan and in terms of the
methodological importance of the study for potential future attitudinal
research in this area. 




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