Ley N°348, Integral para Garantizar a las Mujeres una Vida Libre de Violencia

A number of studies of attitudes towards varieties of English have been carried out in the UK, one of the research sites in the present study, thus I now focus on these. Concerning British perceptions, the discernment of standard versus non- standard varieties of English appeared to be the key index of varying attitudes (e.g., Giles, 1970; Milroy and McClenaghan, 1977; Hiraga, 2005; Coupland and Bishop, 2007; McKenzie, 2015b). A number of scholars conducted a series of studies examining British listeners’ perceptions towards different regional, ethnic, and social varieties of English and have repeatedly found that speakers with features of more prestigious dialects tend to receive a more positive evaluation than those exhibiting the less standard features (e.g., Giles, 1970; Bourhis et al., 1973; Giles et al., 1973; Carranza and Ryan, 1975; Milroy and McClenaghan, 1977; Giles and Billing, 2004; Hiraga, 2005; Coupland and Bishop, 2007; McKenzie, 2015b).

One of the most widely referenced varieties when investigating British attitudes towards different English varieties is the non-regional accent of RP (e.g., Giles, 1970; Bourhis et al., 1973; Milroy and McClenaghan, 1977; Hiraga, 2005; Coupland and Bishop, 2007). Spoken by the elite social class, which constitutes roughly around three percent of the British population, RP is also known as BBC English or the Queen’s English (McArthur 1992:851). Ryan and Carranza (1975:856) concurred that the level of prestige or competence that is assigned to an English variety usually discloses the associated relative socioeconomic status of the speaker. RP is frequently identified as the esteemed variant because of its association with education, wealth and power (Hernandez- Campoy, 2008:264). This further indicates that the systematic positive perception of RP lies in the “status” content which is the amount of prestige value inherent in this specific accent (Giles, 1970:212). Additionally, the favourable attitudes towards RP on the status dimension may also derive from its dominance in English Language Teaching (ELT) settings (Beinhoff, 2013:26). In comparison to RP, an image of “smoke, grime, heavy industry and work” is

associated with the British urban vernacular dialects of Birmingham, Liverpool or Glasgow (Hernandez-Campoy, 2008:264). Speakers of these dialects tend to be denigrated on the status or competence dimension by British people as a consequence of these industrialised cities often being stereotyped as working class communities (e.g., Giles and Coupland, 1991; Dixon et al., 2002; Hiraga, 2005; Hernandez-Campoy, 2008).

Regarding Scottish-accented speech, Cheyne (1970) demonstrated that RP speech received a more favourable status evaluation than Scottish accents from both groups of Scottish and English respondents. Another case in point is the study of Giles (1970) which explored how British children studying in secondary school perceive varieties of English speech: RP, affected RP, North American, French, German, South Welsh, Irish, Italian, Northern English, Somerset, Cockney, Indian and Birmingham. Results obtained from the British pupils suggest that they favoured standard varieties such as RP, Affected RP or North American English more than the regional accent of Somerset or urban accent of Birmingham in terms of status (ibid). Furthermore, the research of Milroy and McClenaghan (1977) showed that the evaluation pattern of Ulster people in North Ireland greatly resembled the finding of Giles and his colleagues (e.g., Giles, 1970; Giles et al., 1990). With regard to qualities reflecting status, which includes ambition, confidence and intelligence, Ulster listeners evaluated the RP accent relatively more positively when compared to Scottish English, Southern Irish English and Ulster English. In the words of Milroy and McClenaghan (1977:6), the positive attitudes towards the RP speaker can be supported by the “reflection of the Ulsterman’s perceptions towards the power of Englishmen in the British Isles”. A more recent study is the BBC Voices project, which collected a large scale of responses from an online language attitude survey (Coupland and Bishop, 2007), and demonstrated that the Queen’s English came to the fore on the prestige ratings when compared to other British indigenous varieties that are spoken in urban regions of Birmingham and Liverpool. In conclusion, these studies signify that British people’s preferences for the prestigious variety of the Queen’s English, or RP, are deeply retained in their stereotyped, ideological attitudes towards standard English speech (e.g., Giles, 1970; Milroy and McClenaghan, 1977; Coupland and Bishop, 2007).

One of the consistent patterns of British evaluations is that non-standard English varieties are perceived much more positively than standard speech on overall attractiveness (e.g., Cheyne, 1970; Giles, 1970; Giles, 1971; Giles and Powesland, 1975; Milroy and McClenaghan, 1977; Trudgill and Giles, 1978; Giles et al., 1981; Giles and Billing, 2004; Hiraga, 2005; Coupland and Bishop, 2007). Furthermore, studies of British language attitudes showed that non-standard English varieties are often perceived positively in terms of social integrity. The study of Giles (1971) illustrates how accent loyalty mediates British speakers’ evaluations of regional dialects including South Welsh and Somerset speech with respect to solidarity. Respondents from South Wales and Somerset rated these dialects well above the standard variety of RP in terms of social integrity traits, which included “seriousness, talkativeness, good-naturedness and humorousness” (Giles, 1971:281). To explain these favourable evaluations of solidarity towards South Welsh and Somerset English, Giles (1971:281) commented that evaluative norms of a variety might depend on the “more diverse, yet nonetheless stereotyped, social qualities and temperaments characteristic of specific regional communities”, in addition to judgments based on the social prestige and status maturity that are related to speaker status. Although RP is typically positioned at the top ranking of speaker status or prestige, it is widely found to receive negative judgments on the solidarity dimension by NSs coming from the UK. For instance, the finding of Hiraga (2005) exemplified that the British rural dialect of Yorkshire was evaluated more favourably on the solidarity dimension than RP was on the status dimension. By the same token, the study of Coupland and Bishop (2007) found that the regional accents of Newcastle and Southern Irish English that are perceived as less standard than the Queen’s English were judged more positively across solidarity traits. Consequently, it can be concluded that in comparison to the standard British speech of RP, which is often assigned with higher social status, British regional dialects are more likely to be praised on the solidarity dimension with the attributes of likeability and attractiveness (e.g., Cheyne, 1970; Giles et al., 1981; Hiraga, 2005; Coupland and Bishop, 2007).

British studies have identified the tendency for IC speakers to rate people speaking English with a foreign accent low in competence but higher in social attractiveness. In relation to IC Englishes, the accumulated findings

demonstrated British participants’ general stigmatisation of the speech varieties of NNSs, such as Indian English (e.g., Giles, 1970; McKenzie, 2015b), French accented English (e.g., Giles, 1970; Coupland and Bishop, 2007), German accented English (e.g., Giles, 1970; Coupland and Bishop, 2007), Chinese accented English (e.g., McKenzie, 2015b) and Japanese accented English (e.g., McKenzie, 2015b). Take the L2 variety of Indian English for example: it was systematically downgraded more than the other British varieties of South Welsh English (e.g., Giles, 1970), Tyneside English and Scottish Standard English (e.g., Giles, 1970; McKenzie, 2015a) in both status and solidarity ratings. These findings indicate that the speech of NNSs is generally denigrated in comparison to British English dialects spoken by people in the UK.

To sum up, British studies of language attitudes uniformly showed that native listeners in the UK react positively to speech of the higher-status group. As for the non-standard varieties of the lower-status group, British evaluators tend to score these English varieties more highly on social integrity. The discussion of NSs’ language attitudes demonstrates the value of examining British people’s perceptions towards varieties of English that are emerging due to globalisation. These findings on NSs’ attitudes will provide a useful grounding for this study to build on. The following sections discuss the studies of NNSs’ attitudes towards varieties of English.