Language attitudes to L1 vs. FL

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Project co-funded by the European Commission / content only reflects the author‘s view

Language attitudes to L1 vs. FL:

Minority Hungarian and Hungary Hungarian students’

language attitudes towards Hungarian vs. English

Anna Fenyvesi and Gabriella Forrás University of Szeged, Hungary

fenyvesi@lit.u-szeged.hu

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^nd

LINEE Conference:

Multilingualism in the Public Sphere

Dubrovnik, May 4-6, 2012

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Language attitudes to L1 vs. FL

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The research:

•  Minority Hungarians in Slovakia, Romania, and Serbia:

•  EU FP6 Network of Excellence, Project no. CIT4-2006-28388, 2006-201

•  Hungary Hungarians: same study replicated in HU in 2010

Language and identity Language policy and planning

Multilingualism and education

Language and economy

European level WP1 WP4 WP7 WP10

National level WP2 WP5 WP8 WP11

Regional level WP3 WP6 WP9 WP12

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Multilingualism

in the minority educational context:

•  What attitudes do minority students have towards the various languages they use, i.e. (i) the minority language (their local, regional variety vs. the standard variety of it), vs. (ii) the majority language vs. (iii) English?

•  Attitudes: “responses made by people to social situations and to members of ethnic and social groups (i.e. the speakers of certain varieties and languages) ” (Fasold 1984)

•  In minority situations: attitudes show “ a pattern of distribution of the social and linguistic evaluations ” by speakers (Wölck 2004)

•  Importance: attitudes

•  provide an insight into the views of members of groups about other groups (Preston 2002)

•  “ held by both the majority and minority groups, they affect the success or failure of

entire minority language planning strategies ” (Ó Riagáin 2008: 329)

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Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin:

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Hungarian national minorities in the countries neighboring Hungary at the time of the latest censuses (source: Gyurgyík and Sebők 2003):

Country (region):

Latest census: Hungarian minority population; % of country total

(% of region total)

Slovakia: 2001: 520,000, 10%

Ukraine (Subcarpathia): 2001: 151,000, 3% (24.2%) Romania (Transylvania): 2002: 1,434,000, 6.6% (19.6%) Serbia (Vojvodina): 2002: 290,000, 3.91% (14.3%) Slovenia (Prekmurje): 2002: 7,000, 0.4% (4.5%)

Austria: 2001: 40,000, 0.5%

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Subjects: N=1,291

Slovakia Romania Serbia Hungary Total

boys 151 148 156 122 577

girls 158 229 145 179 711

missing

gender 1 2 0 0 3

prim.sch. 211 201 133 151 696

sec.sch. 99 178 168 150 595

Total: 310 379 301 301 1,291

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Methodology:

•  Indirect method of studying attitudes

•  Matched guise technique (Lambert 1967, Giles and Coupland 1991, Milroy and Preston 1999 etc.) with 3 important modifications:

(1) mixture of matched guise and verbal guise technique (McKenzie 2008):

•  All: 5 voices from 4 speakers:

–  Hungary Hungarian + Hungarian accented English

–  Regional Hungarian (Vojvodina H., Slovakia H., Transylvania H.; Southern HU H.)

–  British English –  American English

–  (Minority subjects: majority language, i.e. Serbian, Slovak, or Romanian)

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Methodology continued:

•  All speakers: university educated males, between 35 and 50, with no unusual vocal or speech characteristics

•  (2) attitudes to English as L3 (Lasagabaster 2003), NS vs. NNS English (McKenzie 2008)

•  (3) speaker: not a reading task, but describing a picture to give

instructions (McKenzie 2008); r ecordings between 0’55” and 1’30”

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Advantages of task:

Speech/recording produced:

naturalistic

casual style (in Labovian sense) topic, age, gender neutral

allows for phonological, syntactic, lexical, and discourse variation

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Methodology still continued:

•  Speakers rated on semantic differential scales

•  Characteristics: status vs. solidarity

•  Status traits: competence and social standing (Edwards 1999)

•  educated/uneducated, successful/unsuccessful, rich/poor, ambitious/

unmotivated, prominent/average, confident/not confident

•  Solidarity traits: personal integrity and social attractiveness (Edwards 1999)

•  honest/dishonest, reliable/unreliable, likeable/non-likeable, nice/unpleasant,

generous/selfish, interesting/boring

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Analysis:

•  7-point Likert scales;

•  the lower the number, the more positive the evaluation (like in a running race ) e.g. rich _ _ _ _ _ _ _ poor --> rich _ x _ _ _ _ _ poor = 2

•  SPSS, and ROPStat (Vargha and Bánsági)

•  Factor analysis confirms a clustering of status vs. solidarity traits (Cronbach alpha values greater than 0.7 for all traits)

•  ANOVAs to find differences between mean ratings (ranking) of speakers on various traits in

the four regions (reporting rank means)

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Expectations 1: status traits

usual results:

speakers of non-standard and low prestige varieties are more

negatively rated than speakers of standard and/or high prestige

varieties

(cf. negative rating of Southern US English compared to Standard American English,

Soukup 2001, or negative rating of Appalachian English compared to Standard American

English, Luhman 1990)

 expected:

•  English to be rated positively

•  Standard H to be rated more

positively than Regional H

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Expectations 2: solidarity traits

usual results:

speakers of standard and/or high prestige varieties are rated more negatively than non-standard speakers by speakers whose vernacular is the former

(cf. received pronunciation vs. Welsh English in Wales, Creber and Giles 1983)

 expected:

•  Hungarian to be rated more positively than English

•  Standard H to be rated more

negatively than Regional H

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Rating of speakers, status traits, all regions

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

RegH_st SH_st HaccE_st BrE_st AmE_st

ROM

SLO

SER

HUN

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Rating of speakers, status traits, all regions

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

RegH_st SH_st HaccE_st BrE_st AmE_st

ROM

SLO

SER

HUN

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Status traits: in all regions, uniformly

•  English varieties more positively rated than Hungarian varieties

•  ENG varieties:

•  Native ENG varieties more positively rated than HU accented ENG

•  HU varieties:

•  Standard more positively rated than Regional

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Status traits: difference between regions

•  Native ENG varieties:

•  Minority H: AmE preferred to BrE

•  HU H: BrE preferred to AmE

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Status traits:

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5

AmE BrE HaccE HH RegH

Minority H vs. Hungary H

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5

AmE BrE HaccE SH RegH

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Rating of speakers, solidarity traits, all regions

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

RegH_sol SH_sol HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

ROM SLO SER

HUN

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Rating of speakers, solidarity traits, all regions

2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

RegH_sol SH_sol HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

ROM SLO SER

HUN

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Rating of H speakers, solidarity traits, all regions

2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

RegH_sol SH_sol

ROM SLO SER

HUN

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Rating of ENG speakers, solidarity traits, all regions:

2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

ROM SLO SER

HUN

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Rating of speakers, solidarity traits, Romania

2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

RegH_sol SH_sol HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

ROM

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Rating of speakers, solidarity traits, Slovakia

2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

RegH_sol SH_sol HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

SLO

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Rating of speakers, solidarity traits, Serbia

2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

RegH_sol SH_sol HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

SER

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Rating of speakers, solidarity traits, Hungary

2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4

RegH_sol SH_sol HaccE_sol BrE_sol AmE_sol

HUN

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Solidarity traits: in all regions, uniformly

•  ENG varieties:

•  Native ENG varieties more positively rated than HU accented ENG

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Solidarity traits: differences between the 4 regions

•  HU varieties: Standard vs. Regional

•  Standard more positively rated than Regional: SLO and SER

•  Regional more positively rated than Standard: ROM

•  Standard and Regional equally rated: HUN

•  HU vs. ENG:

•  SER: + AmE, BrE, HUaccENG, StHU, RegHU – (same as Status Traits)

•  SLO: + AmE, BrE, StHU, HUaccENG, RegHU -

•  ROM: + AmE, RegHU, BrE, HUaccENG, StHU –

•  HUN: + AmE, BrE, StHU=RegHU, HUaccENG -

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Solidarity traits:

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

AmE BrE HaccE HH RegH

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

AmE BrE HaccE SH RegH

Minority H vs. Hungary H

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Conclusions:

•  ENGLISH vs. HUNGARIAN:

•  Very high ratings of English: ratings higher than those of Hungarian speakers and the majority language speaker on all status traits and most solidarity traits; English has

extremely high prestige! (cf. El-Dash and Dusnardo 2001: Brazil teenagers rated English more positively on status traits than they did their 1st language, Brazilian Portuguese, and half of them did the same even on solidarity traits).

•  ENGLISH:

•  Native Englishes rated higher than HU accented English

•  Minority H: AmE rated higher than BrE; HU H: BrE rated higher than AmE

•  HUNGARIAN:

•  More positive rating of Hungary Hungarian than of respective Regional Hungarian on status in all regions (cf. New Zealand English vs. RP, Bayard 1991: RP was rated by New Zealanders more highly than NZE)

•  Positive solidarity rating of local Hungarian in Transylvania: Regional Hungarian is

rated highest here (of 4 regions) (on all traits)

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References:

Bayard, Donn. 1991. A taste of Kiwi: Attitudes to accent, speaker gender, and perceived ethnicity across the Tasman. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 11(1): 1-38.

Creber, Claire és Howard Giles. 1983. Social context and language attitudes: The role of formality-informality of the setting. Language Sciences, 5(2): 155–161.

Edwards, John. 1999. Refining our understanding of language attitudes. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18:101–110.

El-Dash, Linda és Joanne Busnardo. 2001. Brazilian attitudes toward English: Dimensions of status and solidarity. In: International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11/1: 51–74.

Ellecosta, Lois. 2007. Cultura ladina por fistide de Lois Ellecosta, documentaziun por fà l'ejam de ladin dla scora, Urtijëi.

Fasold, Ralph. 1984. Language attitudes. In: Fasold, Ralph, ed. The sociolinguistics of society. Oxford: Blackwell, 147–179.

Gardner, Robert C. 2002. Social psychological perspective on second language acquisition. In: Kaplan, Robert B. The Oxford handbook of applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 160–169.

Giles, Howard and Nikolas Coupland. 1991. Language: Contexts and consequences. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Gyurgyík, László, és Sebők, László. 2003. Népszámlálási körkép Közép-Európából 1989–2002 [An overview of Central European censuses, 1989–2002]. Budapest: Teleki László Alapítvány.

Jonkman, Rietze J. 1990. Characterizing a minority language: A social psychological comparison between Dutch, Frisian and the Ljouwert vernacular. In: Gorter, Durk, Jarich F. Hoekstra, Lammert G. Jansma, Jehannes Ytsma, szerk. Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages, Vol. 2: Western and Eastern European Papers. Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters Ltd, 11–20.

Lambert, Wallace E. 1967. A social psychology of bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues, 23, 91–109.

Lasagabaster, David. 2003. Attitudes towards English in the Basque Autonomous Community. World Englishes, 22(4): 585–597.

Luhman, Reid. 1990. Appalachian English stereotypes: Language attitudes in Kentucky. Language in Society, 19(3): 331-348.

McKenzie, Robert M. 2008. Social factors and non-native attitudes towards varieties of spoken English: A Japanese case study. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 18:63–88.

Milroy, Lesley, and Dennis R. Preston. 1999. Introduction. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18:4–9.

Ó Riagáin, Pádraig N. 2008. Language attitudes and minority languages. In: Jasone Cenoz and Nancy H. Hornberger, eds. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. 2nd Edition, Volume 6: Knowledge about Language. New York: Springer, 329–341.

Preston, Dennis R. 2002. Language with an attitude. In: Chambers, J.K., Peter Trudgill and Natalie Schilling-Estes, eds. The handbook of language variation and change. Oxford: Blackwell, 40–66.

Soukup, Barbara. 2001. ‘Y’all come back now, y’hear!?’ Language attitudes in the United States towards Southern American English. Vienna English Working Papers, 10(2): 56-68.

Wölck, Wolfgang. 2004. Attitudinal contrasts between minority and majority languages in contact. Trans, Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 15. http://www.inst.at/trans/15Nr/inhalt15.htm/. Date of access: June 10, 2008.

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Acknowledgements:

Thanks are due to Zsuzsanna Dégi and Zsuzsanna Kiss for collecting the Transylvania data, to István Rabec for collecting the Slovakia data, and to Ágnes Bács-Ódry for her assistance with the data collection in Vojvodina;

to Szabolcs Takács (Eötvös Loránd University and Károli Gáspár Reformed University, Budapest) for the statistical analysis.

The presentation is supported by the European Union and co-funded by the European Social Fund.

Project title: “Broadening the knowledge base and supporting the long term

professional sustainability of the Research University Centre of Excellence at the University of Szeged by ensuring the rising generation of excellent

scientists.”

Project number: TÁMOP-4.2.2/B-10/1-2010-0012

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Language attitudes to L1 vs. FL