Speakers
Description
Discrimination manifests in various forms, including prejudice based on accent (Barrett et al., 2022). To counter such biases in the context of the English language, English-language curricula typically emphasize intercultural communicative competence (Freitag-Hild, 2018). However, this curricular goal often contrasts with a classroom reality in Expanding Circle contexts, in which only Standard Southern British (StSBrE) and Standard American English (StAmE) are held in high esteem, while other accents are perceived as less ‘educated’ or even associated with strong negative stereotypes (e.g., Davydova, 2015; McKenzie, 2010; McKenzie & Gilmore, 2017; Meer et al., 2022). Understanding attitudes towards different varieties of English is key to addressing accent discrimination, and examining these attitudes among high school students is particularly relevant because they are members of a generation with the potential to shape future language ideologies surrounding World Englishes.
In the present study, a contextualized verbal-guise accent rating test was administered to high school students between 15 and 20 years of age (n = 1,342) in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. Participants were asked to rate speakers of StSBrE, StAmE, Multicultural London English, African American English, Nigerian English, Indian English, two locally salient Expanding Circle varieties (e.g., Turkish Learner English and Russian Learner English in Germany) and their respective own variety, namely Bosnian, German, Italian, or Portuguese Learner English.
Data analysis employed principal component analysis (PCA) to determine underlying dimensions of the ratings in the VGT items. The PCA showed two dimensions, social status and social attractiveness, which were subsequently modeled as dependent variables in two mixed-effects regression models. The analyses additionally accounted for familiarity with different accents, guessed origin, and participants’ international background. The study is based on a substantially broader empirical basis than comparable previous research and systematically examines a range of factors central to the formation of accent attitudes which were not investigated in previous accent-discrimination research. The results demonstrate how accent bias manifests across Inner Circle standard, Inner Circle non-standard, Outer Circle, and Expanding Circle varieties of English, showcasing persistent hierarchies as well as cross-contextual variation in adolescents’ evaluations within multilingual educational settings.
Funded by the European Union through Erasmus+ grant 2022-1-IT02-KA220-SCH-000087602.