Language Attitudes and Minority Languages
- PDF / 112,819 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 439.37 x 663.307 pts Page_size
- 14 Downloads / 214 Views
ANGUAGE ATTITUDES AND MINORITY LANGUAGES
INTRODUCTION
As the research literature throws up a variety of definitions of attitudes, the general and relatively straightforward definition provided by Sarnoff (1970, p. 279) is widely used as a starting point—for him an attitude is ‘a disposition to react favourably or unfavourably to a class of objects’. In the case of language attitudes, the ‘class of objects’ which instigate such reactions are, of course, always language related. Baker (1992, p. 29, cited in Garrett, Coupland and Williams, 2003, p. 12) has observed that some or all of the following ‘objects’ have formed the focus of language attitude studies: language variation, dialect and speech style; learning a new language; specific minority languages; language groups, communities, minorities; language lessons; parents of children learning languages; language preferences and language use. Even this list is not exhaustive. Giles, Hewstone and Ball (1983, p. 83), for example, would also include ‘opinions concerning . . . language policies’. This vast research corpus has already generated several integrative studies and reviews (e.g. Baker, 1992; Bradac, Cargile and Hallett, 2001; Garrett, Coupland and Williams, 2003; Giles and Billings, 2004; Giles and Coupland, 1991; Ryan, Giles and Sebastian, 1982). It is not possible, within the confines of this chapter, to review this literature in detail, but an attempt will be made to collate the more important elements and to add some priorities of my own. Language attitudes, as defined earlier, are clearly important in a variety of minority language policy contexts. For school pupils from minority language backgrounds, it is frequently the case that their second language rather than their first is the dominant language in the community, and the associated attitudes arising from this juxtaposition greatly changes the dynamics involved in learning the second language (Gardner, 2002). For similar reasons, language attitudes held by both the majority and minority groups affect the success or failure of entire minority language planning strategies. Typically, the dominant language group promotes its patterns of language use as the model required for social and economic advancement. This may not only affect the resources made available by the state for minority language policies, but the attitudinal response of minorities themselves is often even more complex. A minority language J. Cenoz and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 6: Knowledge about Language, 329–341. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
330
PÁDRAIG Ó RIAGÁIN
that is valued for its identity and solidarity functions may simultaneously be seen, even by its own speakers, as weakly endowed in terms of status (or linguistic capital, Bourdieu, 1991). The tension set up by these competing evaluations can be extremely difficult for individuals and communities alike to contain and resolve. More than 20 years ago, in a review of attitudinal research at the time, it was observ
Data Loading...
