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In the previous subsection, I checked whether participants’ attitudes towards early bilinguals and monolinguals differed when they held prior information about the speakers. Now I will check whether there is a statistically significant difference between the scores of the two speaker groups when they do not hold this prior information.

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Table 5.6 below shows the significance of monolinguals and early bilinguals by Group B participants.

Table 5.6: Significance of monolinguals and early bilinguals (Group B)

Question Statistically significant

difference Direction of Effect

Uneducated vs

Educated ✓

Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals Lower Class vs Upper

Class ✓

Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals

Poor vs Rich ✓ Monolinguals < Early

Bilinguals Unintelligent vs

Intelligent ✓

Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals

Disfluent vs Fluent × n/a

The Wilcoxon rank sum test showed the same result in Group B as Group A. The scores for early bilinguals and monolinguals were significantly different in terms of

superiority for all the questions except for fluency (W = 2678, p > 0.05). Therefore,

even without prior information of the speakers, the listeners reacted differently towards the speakers’ speech. Furthermore, their reactions were similar to those of the primed group.

In terms of education, the range and interquartile range regarding the monolinguals and early bilinguals from Group B participants were equal but the scores of early bilinguals had a higher median (Monolinguals: 5.0, Early Bilinguals: 6.0) and a slightly higher mean (Monolinguals: 5.4, Early Bilinguals: 5.7). Therefore, the Group B participants’ scores of the early bilinguals were significantly higher than those of monolinguals (W = 2256.5, p < 0.05).

The monolinguals had a lower minimum score, interquartile range (Monolinguals: 4 to 6, Early Bilinguals: 5 to 7), median (Monolinguals: 5.0, Early Bilinguals: 6.0), and mean (Monolinguals: 4.8, Early Bilinguals: 5.5) than the early bilinguals for the question “Lower Class vs Upper Class”. Therefore, participants again viewed the early

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bilinguals more positively than the monolinguals (W = 1907.5, p < 0.001).

For the question “Poor vs Rich”, the two speaker groups had an equal median of five but the early bilinguals had a higher maximum score, with higher scores in the interquartile range (Monolinguals: 4 to 5, Early Bilinguals: 4 to 6), and a higher mean (Monolinguals: 4.7, Early Bilinguals: 5.2). Hence, participants without prior information of the speakers assessed the early bilinguals to be richer than the monolinguals (W = 2098, p < 0.05).

In terms of intelligence, monolinguals had a lower minimum score, lower mean (Monolinguals: 5.0, Early Bilinguals: 5.4) and an interquartile range that included lower scores (Monolinguals: 4 to 6, Early Bilinguals: 5 to 6). Thus, the listeners perceived the early bilinguals’ speech to be more intelligent than the monolinguals’ speech (W = 2678, p < 0.05).

The table below summarises the findings of the subsection investigating whether participants viewed the early bilinguals significantly differently to the monolinguals. Listeners held more positive views towards the early bilinguals than the monolinguals even when they did not know that the speakers were fluent in another language. A possible reason for this is the difference in the speakers’ accent as well as the individual differences in the speakers’ voices which may have influenced the favouring of the early bilinguals.

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Table 5.7: Significance of monolinguals and early bilinguals

Question Groups A B Uneducated vs Educated ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) Lower Class vs Upper

Class ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) Poor vs Rich ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) Unintelligent vs Intelligent ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) ✓ (Monolinguals < Early Bilinguals) Disfluent vs Fluent × ×

Therefore, no matter whether they held prior information of the speakers or not, participants viewed the early bilinguals more positively than the monolinguals for most of the superiority questions. The only question that did not show a difference between the two speaker groups was the question regarding fluency and were seen similarly.

These findings show that for all the questions except for fluency, statistically significant differences were observed between the early bilinguals and monolinguals. Native speakers of English have been found to perceive native speakers more positively in terms of status (e.g. Anisfeld et al., 1962) so the current study did not follow this trend as regardless of whether participants held prior information of the speakers or not, the early bilinguals were perceived significantly higher in terms of

superiority than the monolinguals. However, as found in the previous chapter, the

majority of the participants perceived the early bilinguals’ origin of accent as coming from the UK and thus it is likely that the listeners perceived them as native speakers

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of English similar to the monolingual speakers. Even if we assume that the participants did perceive the early bilinguals’ accent were influenced by Japanese, it would differ with Cargile and Giles’ (1998) study where no significant difference was observed for moderate Japanese-accented English and American accent in terms of status. Though, it is difficult to compare the studies entirely as it is not easy to assess the similarity of the early bilinguals’ speech with the moderate Japanese-accented English speech used in Cargile and Giles’ study. Also, the participants are very different. The participants in their study were university students in the US while the current study adopted participants from the UK. For the primed participants, as they knew that the speakers were fluent in another language, the additional linguistic factor may have influenced the listeners to perceive the early bilinguals as being superior to the monolinguals. However, as Group B participants also showed the same trend, there may be another reason why listeners reacted differently towards the two speaker groups. A possible reason for the early bilinguals being perceived more positively than the monolinguals in my study could be the influence of accent. The two monolingual speakers and the two early bilinguals were all brought up in the South of England but as they did not grow up in the same city, differences in their accent could have influenced the listeners’ attitudes. The two early bilinguals grew up in London but for the monolinguals, one monolingual grew up in Surrey, and the other monolingual has lived in South London and Sussex. However, as seen in the previous chapter, the most popular city that the listeners perceived the accent as coming from, in many cases, was London. The only circumstance where the most popular answer was not London, was for Monolingual Speaker 2 by the un-primed group of participants where the most common city was considered to be Birmingham. Nevertheless, the most popular region that the participants perceived the accent as coming from was Southern. Thus, it may just be the individual difference in the speakers’ voices that influenced the listeners to perceive the speakers differently in terms of superiority.