The aim of my thesis is to map out the attitudes and opinions of professional and future teachers in relation to the spoken language. The study has been conducted through an initial survey that was followed up by four in-depth interviews, two with professional teachers and two with prospective teachers. The study is of a qualitative nature and supports the sociocultural perspective. In the syllabus for the Swedish language, the Swedish National Agency for Education determines which position the spoken language should have in the classroom. According to the syllabus, the purpose of the language is to develop people's identity, give people the opportunity to express their feelings and thoughts while at the same time being receptive to other people's feelings and thoughts. Furthermore, The Swedish National Agency for Education believes that it is important to have a rich and varied language to be able to be a part of the society. In my research, it has been found that this view is shared by many teachers regardless of category. However, there are differences in how teachers work with the spoken language in the classroom and what is considered accepted within the spoken language. The result also indicates that the oral language spoken at school is affected by the type of oral language the pupils are used to at home. Keywords: Vygotskij, spoken language, language attitudes, profanities, linguistic awareness / Syftet med mitt examensarbete är att utforska vilka åsikter och inställningar som yrkesverksamma och blivande lärare har i förhållandet till talspråket. Kartläggningen har skett genom en inledande enkät som utmynnade i fyra fördjupande intervjuer, två med yrkesverksamma lärare och två med blivande lärare. Undersökningen är av kvalitativ art och tar stöd i det sociokulturella perspektivet i den teoretiska utgångspunkten. Skolverket statuerar i kursplanen för svenskämnet vilken ställning talspråket bör har i klassrummet. Enligt kursplanen ska språket utveckla människors identitet, ge människor möjligheten att uttrycka sina känslor och tankar och samtidigt vara mottaglig för andra människors känslor och tankar. Vidare anser även Skolverket att för att kunna vara en del av samhället är det viktigt att ha ett rikt och varierat språk. I min forskning har det framkommit att denna syn delas av många lärare oavsett kategori. Dock finns det skillnader i hur man arbetar med språket i klassrummet och vad som anses vara accepterat inom talspråket. Resultatet tyder även på att hemmiljön påverkar det talspråk som eleven bär med sig in i skolvärlden.

The current study quantitatively and qualitatively investigated Spanish maintenance among 45 Spanish heritage language (SHL) speakers in Utah who completed a survey about their linguistic background, their attitudes toward Spanish, their self-rated Spanish proficiency, and their current Spanish usage. Nine participants were also interviewed to expound on their linguistic experience. Previous studies on language maintenance (Alba et al., 2002; Carreira & Kagan, 2011; Lanier, 2014; Lynch, 2000; Mejías et al., 2002; Potowski, 2004; Silva-Corvalán, 1994; Zentella, 1997) have analyzed different sociolinguistics factors that relate to Spanish maintenance and usage in areas with high Hispanic populations. Nevertheless, little research has been done in locations with lower Hispanic concentrations such as in Indiana (Barbosa, 2015), Washington (Fernández-Mallat & Carey, 2017) and Kansas (Showstack & Guzman, 2020). Due to the limited research in these areas, the current study examined Spanish language maintenance of second-generation (G2) and generation 1.5 (G1.5) SHL speakers. Findings suggest that although participants have positive attitudes toward Spanish, they feel more confident communicating in English and have limited contact with the Spanish-speaking community and limited use of Spanish. However, results show that participants have a higher use of Spanish and greater connection with the Hispanic community due to their participation in Spanish-speaking religious congregations. Thus, the unique bilingual atmosphere that exists in Utah due to the cultural influence that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has and Utah’s government objective to bring about a multilingual workforce through bilingual education may aid in Spanish maintenance in this state among future SHL speakers.

This essay examines how teachers perceive youth language in schoolwork. We look into what the teachers believe youth language to be, when it is used and how often it is used, as well as for what purpose it is used. This essay also examines the teachers’ attitudes towards youth language, as well as their response to the presence of youth language in schoolwork. The study follows a phenomenographic approach, which means that the teachers’ perspective is the focus of the study as a whole. The research methodology used was mixed methods, as well as a thematic analysis method. This conveys that both qualitative and quantitative means have been used to gather the data, in the form of semi-structured interviews and an online survey, the latter of which was sent out to numerous schools in the Northern part of Sweden, and that the empirical data was thematically sorted and analysed. The results show that there is a shared understanding of what youth language entails, however, the attitude towards it varies depending on the purpose of the task. The teachers have different expectations depending on what programme the students attend and the gender of the students. The results also show that the perceived frequency of the use of youth language varies between programme and gender, and the teachers’ responses to the presence of youth language also varies depending on these same factors.

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No description available.

This study examines the languages attitudes surrounding the standard (Academic Guaraní) and vernacular (Jopará) varieties of Guaraní, as well as the reported language use for Spanish and the two varieties of Guaraní. The study addresses language attitudes as manifestations of pride, loyalty, and prestige and reported language usage characteristic of a dichotomy between high and low varieties (e.g. Loureiro-Rodríguez, 2008) in order to determine if similar language attitudes and linguistic norms are evident in this community. A survey was used to gather data from 10 students and 10 teachers who live and work in Altos de La Cordillera (a small town with rural and urban features). Contrary to the findings of previous research studies on the language attitudes associated with high and low varieties (e.g. Garrett, 2001), the participants of this study appear to show an all-round favorability for the standard variety of Guaraní (Academic Guaraní). Furthermore, the reported language use of Spanish, Jopará, and Academic Guaraní does not seem to provide evidence for a Spanish/Guaraní diglossia in this community nor does there appear to be a dichotomy between the high and low varieties of Guaraní such as what has historically existed between Spanish and Guaraní. The participants' language attitudes and patterns of reported language use are interpreted in relation to notions of solidarity, superiority, accommodation, and the relationship between adolescence and identity formation. / Master of Arts / This study examines the languages attitudes surrounding the variety of Guaraní taught in school (Academic Guaraní) and the primarily oral variety of Guaraní (Jopará) historically spoken at home or in private contexts. It also examines the reported language use for Spanish and the two varieties of Guaraní. The study addresses language attitudes as manifestations of pride, loyalty, and prestige and reported language usage characteristic of multilingual communities in order to determine if similar language attitudes and linguistic norms are evident in this community. A survey was used to gather data from 10 students and 10 teachers who live and work in Altos de La Cordillera (a small town with rural and urban characteristics). The participants of this study appear to show an all-round favorability for the standard variety of Guaraní (Academic Guaraní). Furthermore, the reported language use of Spanish, Jopará, and Academic Guaraní does not seem to be connected to the formality or informality of the given situation or context. The participants’ language attitudes and patterns of reported language use are interpreted in reference to inter and intra-group relations and the notion of superiority.

The study investigates prediction factors of children's proficiency in Russian among children from Russian-speaking families in Saskatchewan. For that purpose, 5-7 year old children and their parents were interviewed about their language use, proficiency, and language attitudes, as well as children's Russian language proficiency was measured and compared to monolingual children in Russia.

This thesis attempts to bridge the gap between Social Psychology and Sociolinguistics by exploring the relationship between language attitudes and language use. Using a sample of 71 university students in Spain, it investigates how learners deal with phonological variation in the English language, what language attitudes are held towards American and British models of English speech and which social and psychological factors are linked with learners' language attitudes and language use. A social-psychological model was adopted and adapted, allowing learners' use of intervocalic /t/ to be successfully predicted from measures of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Direct measures of learners' preferred accent and pronunciation class were also highly predictive of learners' language use. Several trends were found in the attitudinal data. Firstly, British English speech was rated more favourably overall, though American English speech was often viewed as more socially attractive. Secondly, the evaluative dimensions of competence and social attractiveness were salient amongst learners in the Spanish context. Each of these findings endorses those of previous language attitude studies conducted elsewhere. Thirdly, female speakers were consistently rated more favourably than male speakers; thus, highlighting the need for further investigation into the variable of speaker sex. Familiarity with the speech varieties under investigation – most often gained through education, media exposure, time spent abroad and/or contact with native speakers – seemed to result in learners challenging rigid stereotypes and expressing more individualised attitudes. Overall, British speech emerged as formal and functional, while American speech was thought to fulfil more informal and interpersonal functions. This thesis provides compelling evidence of attitude-behaviour relations, adds to the growing volume of language attitude research being conducted across the globe, and establishes – for the first time – which social and psychological variables are relevant and salient within English-language learning contexts in Spain.

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.

Perceptual dialectology studies have shown that people have strong opinions about the number and placement of dialect regions. There has been relatively little research conducted in this area on Korean, however, with early studies using only short language attitude surveys. To address this gap in research, in the present study, I use the 'draw-­?a-­?map' task to examine perceptions of language variation in Korea. I ask respondents to draw a line around places in Korea where people speak differently and provide names, examples, and comments about the language spoken in those areas. With the resulting data, I use ArcGIS 10.0 software to quantitatively identify, aggregate, and map the most salient dialect areas and categories for subjects' perceptions. I also perform a content analysis of the qualitative data provided by respondents using 'keywords.' During this process, I categorize comments and labels given by respondents to find emerging themes. Finally, I stratify perceptions of respondents by demographic factors, e.g., age, sex, and urbanicity, that have often been found to be important in language variation and change. An analysis of these data suggests that Koreans' perceptions of dialect regions are not necessarily limited by administrative boundaries. In fact, the data reveal not only perceptions of dialect variation unassociated with geographic borders, but they also tap into the way people connect ideas about language and place. Results from this study have implications for language attitudes research, perceptual dialectology methodology, and the relationship between language and place in Korea.