What is it about?
British and American varieties of English speech are the most commonly taught worldwide. This article explores learners' attitudes towards these speech varieties and the complexity of these attitudes, encompassing beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies.
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Why is it important?
My study explores attitudes in greater depth than previous language attitude studies by measuring cognitive, affective, and conative components. Its findings demonstrate inconsistencies in attitudes towards varieties of English speech, with a general preference for British speech but stronger feelings towards American speech.
Perspectives
This was my first journal publication and, through writing it, I hope to have highlighted the importance of allowing psychological theory to more fully inform the study of language attitudes within Sociolinguistics.
Dr Erin Carrie
Manchester Metropolitan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘British is professional, American is urban’: attitudes towards English reference accents in Spain, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, April 2016, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/ijal.12139.
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