This study draws on previous research (e.g., Labov, 1969; Carranza & Ryan, 1975; Brennan & Brennan, 1981; Alford & Strother, 1990) which has revealed and confirmed the many language stereotypes and biases in existence in the United States The present study differs from earlier investigations in that it specifically addresses the current-day attitudes of American English speakers toward a selection of accents that include both native (U.S. regional) and nonnative (foreign or ethnic) accents of English. / The purpose of the present study was to determine the evaluative reactions of an American-born audience toward accented English speech. Fifty-three American college students listened to an audio recording of eight accented English speakers, four representing regional U.S. accent groups and four representing ethnic or foreign accent groups. The students' evaluative reactions indicated favoritism toward the American English speakers with a consistent downgrading of the ethnic speakers. Analysis of the personality ratings suggests that participants based their judgments to some extent on their perceptions of the accented speakers in terms of three dimensions: appeal, accommodation and aspiration. The conceptual affinity of these three dimensions and the subsequent revelation of three-dimensional model of "absolute accommodation" are discussed. / This exploratory study clearly implies a need for further research, particularly into educational programs or interventions aimed at countering the negative attitudes and stereotypes associated with language variety.

This thesis is based on the recorded speech and field notes of the author's three-year-old child who was acquiring three languages simultaneously (Chichewa, Chitumbuka and English). Chichewa is his mother's first language, Chitumbuka is his father's first language and English is both the language of the preschool that he was attending and the official language in Malawi. This study was unusual in that it involved African languages that are under-researched in the field of language acquisition and dealt with two cognate languages (Chichewa and Chitumbuka) and a non-cognate language, English. The fact that Chichewa and Chitumbuka strongly resemble each other may have made movement between the two easier for the child. The analysis of the child's recorded speech shows that he mixed more at the lexical level (64.2%) and less at the phonological level (6.3%). The findings demonstrate that what the child had learnt at school in English fulfilled a booster function when either Chichewa or Chitumbuka was used. The results also reveal that the child's language mixing was influenced by the topic of discussion, the context and the interlocutor's mixed input. The interlocutor's discourse strategies also had an impact on the child's use of mixing. The results therefore provide support for the bilingual bootstrapping hypothesis, the modeling hypothesis and the discourse hypothesis. The results also demonstrate that Chichewa was generally the matrix or host language when mixing occurred. At school, however, where only English was permitted, the question of a matrix language did not occur. Furthermore, the combination of lexical and grammatical morphemes demonstrates that Chichewa was dominant in the child's speech, in terms of the dominant-language hypothesis proposed by Petersen (1988). This study challenges the Free Morpheme Constraint and the Equivalence Constraint in that they do not appear to be universally applicable. Instead, the Matrix Language Frame Model is supported as it applies to code-mixing involving English and Bantu languages. This model was relevant, as the speech analyzed in this study involved code-mixing between English and the two Bantu languages, Chichewa and Chitumbuka. However, it was difficult to apply the Matrix Language Frame Model to some of the child's mixed utterances because the MLU was low. It is hoped therefore that researchers will create further models that will allow for an analysis of the mixed morphemes in single word utterances, especially for the Nguni African languages, which are agglutinative by nature. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

Typescript (Photocopy) / Bibliography: leaves 239-260 / ix, 260 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dept. of Psychology, University of Adelaide, 1990

Thesis (M. Communication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Summary in English and Afrikaans. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Psychology, University of Adelaide, 1990. / Typescript (Photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 239-260).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1991. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2751. Abstract precedes thesis as [3] preliminary leaves. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-45).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.64-67).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Göteborg. / Added t.p. with abstract and errata slip (3 p.) inserted. "(Section 1.3 in cooperation with Peter de Chateau, M.D.)." Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-217).

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 1996. / Abstract p. laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. [288]-298).