Home A sociolinguistic approach to implicit language attitudes towards historically white English accents among young L1 South African indigenous language speakers
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

A sociolinguistic approach to implicit language attitudes towards historically white English accents among young L1 South African indigenous language speakers

  • Pedro Álvarez-Mosquera EMAIL logo and Alejandro Marín-Gutiérrez
Published/Copyright: November 12, 2019

Abstract

This study investigates the potential role of context-relevant sociolinguistic factors in explaining young L1 indigenous South African language speakers’ IAT (Implicit Association Test) scores towards two varieties largely associated with the white group: Standard South African English and Afrikaans accented English. To this end, a post-IAT sociolinguistic survey on participants’ linguistic background, language exposure and intergroup social distance levels (among other social factors) was used. Separate ANOVAS were performed using the IAT reaction times as a dependent variable and sociolinguistic variables as factors. Notably, the sociolinguistic approach revealed that more positive attitudes towards Afrikaans accented English are correlated with the language range of participants, the dominant languages spoken in their places of origin, and the type of school they have attended.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Jose Castillejo grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (CAS16/00071). I would like to acknowledge Professor Rajend Mesthrie’s research chair in Migration, Language and Social Change, via the National Research Foundation’s South African Research Chairs Initiative (grant no. 64805) for hosting me at the University of Cape Town.

References

Adams, Byron G., Fons J. R. Van de Vijver & Gideon P. De Bruin. 2012. Identity in South Africa: Examining self-descriptions across ethnic groups. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 36(3). 377–388.10.1016/j.ijintrel.2011.11.008Search in Google Scholar

Álvarez-Mosquera, Pedro. 2017a. Young white Afrikaans speakers in South Africa: A case of liminal identity? Folia Linguistica 51(3). 639–670.10.1515/flin-2017-0024Search in Google Scholar

Álvarez-Mosquera, Pedro. 2017b. The use of IAT for sociolinguistic purposes: Language attitudes in South Africa. Language Matters 48(2). 69–90.10.1080/10228195.2017.1331458Search in Google Scholar

Álvarez-Mosquera, Pedro & Alejandro Marín-Gutiérrez. 2018. Implicit language attitudes of L1 South African Indigenous language speakers towards historically white English accents. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 37(2). 238–248.10.1177/0261927X17718349Search in Google Scholar

Azar, Beth. 2008. IAT: Fad or fabulous. Monitor in Psychology 39(7). 44.10.1037/e517642009-023Search in Google Scholar

Babel, Molly. 2010. Dialect divergence and convergence in New Zealand English. Language in Society 39(4). 437–456.10.1017/S0047404510000400Search in Google Scholar

Bangeni, Bongi & Rochelle Kapp. 2007. Shifting language attitudes in linguistically diverse learning environment in South Africa. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development 28(4). 253–269.10.2167/jmmd495.0Search in Google Scholar

Baron, Andrew S. & Mahzarin R. Banaji. 2006. The development of implicit attitudes. Evidence of race evaluations from ages 6 and 10 and adulthood. Psychological Science 17(1). 53–58.10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01664.xSearch in Google Scholar

Blanton, Hart, James Jaccard, Jonathan Klick, Barbara Mellers, Gregory Mitchell & Philip E. Tetlock. 2009. Strong claims and weak evidence: Reassessing the predictive validity of the IAT. Journal of Applied Psychology 94(3). 567–582.10.1037/a0014665Search in Google Scholar

Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall. 2004. Language and Identity. In Alessandro Duranti (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 369–394. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.10.1002/9780470996522.ch16Search in Google Scholar

Campbell-Kibler, Katherine. 2012. The Implicit Association Test and sociolinguistic meaning. Lingua 122(7). 753–763.10.1016/j.lingua.2012.01.002Search in Google Scholar

Casale, Daniela & Dorrit Posel. 2011. English language proficiency and earnings in a developing country: The case of south Africa. The Journal of Socio-economics 40(4). 385–393.10.1016/j.socec.2011.04.009Search in Google Scholar

Census 2011. Statistics South Africa. http://www.statssa.gov.za/ (accessed 14 May 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Centre for Higher Education Trust. 2015. http://www.chet.org.za/data/sahe-open-data (accessed 27 June 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Cornelissen, Scarlett & Steffen Horstmeier. 2002. The social and political construction of identities in the New South Africa: An analysis of the Western Cape province. The Journal of Modern African Studies 40(1). 55–82.10.1017/S0022278X01003810Search in Google Scholar

Crisp, Richard J. & Sarah R. Beck. 2005. Reducing intergroup bias: The moderating role of ingroup identification. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 8. 173–185.10.1177/1368430205051066Search in Google Scholar

Cunningham, William A., John B. Nezlek & Mahzarin R. Banaji. 2004. Implicit and explicit ethnocentrism: Revisiting the ideologies of prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(10). 1332–1346.10.1177/0146167204264654Search in Google Scholar

De Klerk, Gerda. 2002. Mother-tongue education in South Africa: The weight of history. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 154. 29–46.10.1515/ijsl.2002.011Search in Google Scholar

De Klerk, Vivian. 1999. Black South African English: Where to from here? World Englishes 18. 311–324.10.1111/1467-971X.00146Search in Google Scholar

Deumert, Ana. 2010. Tracking the demographics of (Urban) language shift–An analysis of South African census data. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 31(1). 13–35.10.1080/01434630903215125Search in Google Scholar

Dixon, John, Kevin Durrheim, Colin Tredoux, Linda Tropp, Beverley Clack & Libby Eaton. 2010. A paradox of integration? Interracial contact, prejudice reduction and perceptions of racial discrimination. Journal of Social Issues 66(2). 401–416.10.1111/j.1540-4560.2010.01652.xSearch in Google Scholar

Dyers, Charlyn. 2015. The conceptual evolution in linguistics: Implications for the study of Kaaps. Multilingual Margins 2(2). 55–64.10.14426/mm.v2i2.72Search in Google Scholar

Finchilescu, Gillian, Colin Tredoux, Johan Mynhardt, Jace Pillay & Lucena Muianga. 2007. Accounting for lack of interracial mixing amongst South African university students. South African Journal of Psychology 37(4). 720–737.10.1177/008124630703700404Search in Google Scholar

Finlayson, Rosalie, Karen Calteaux & Carol Myers-Scotton. 1998. Orderly mixing and accommodation in South African codeswitching. Journal of Sociolinguistics 2(3). 395–420.10.1111/1467-9481.00052Search in Google Scholar

Finn, Peter. 2008. Cape flats English: Phonology. In Rajend Mesthrie (ed.), Varieties of English: Africa, South and Southeast Asia, 200–222. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110208429.1.200Search in Google Scholar

Fraser, Isabelle. 2015. South African university ends teaching in Afrikaans after protests. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africa&indianocean/southafrica/11993953/South–African–university–ends–teaching–in–Afrikaans–after–protests.html (accessed 10 July 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Gawronski, Bertram & Galen V. Bodenhausen. 2006. Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin 132(5). 692–731.10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.692Search in Google Scholar

Gawronski, Bertram, Kurt R. Peters, Paula M. Brochu & Fritz Strack. 2008. Understanding the relations between different forms of racial prejudice: A cognitive consistency perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34. 648–665.10.1177/0146167207313729Search in Google Scholar

Gawronski, Bertram & Fritz Strack. 2004. On the propositional nature of cognitive consistency: Dissonance changes explicit, but not implicit attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40(4). 535–542.10.1016/j.jesp.2003.10.005Search in Google Scholar

Gibson, James L. & Christopher Claassen. 2010. Racial reconciliation in South Africa: Interracial contact and changes over time. Journal of Social Issues 66(2). 255–272.10.1111/j.1540-4560.2010.01644.xSearch in Google Scholar

Giliomee, Hermann. 2016. The war against Afrikaans at Stellenbosch. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the–war–against–afrikaans–at–stellenbosch (accessed 2 February 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Greenfield, Derek. 2010. When I hear Afrikaans in the classroom and never my language, I get rebellious: Linguistic apartheid in South African higher education. Language and Education 24(6). 517–534.10.1080/09500782.2010.502969Search in Google Scholar

Greenwald, Anthony G., Debbie E. McGhee & Jordan L. K. Schwartz. 1998. Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74(6). 1464–1480.10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464Search in Google Scholar

Greenwald, Anthony G., T. Andrew Poehlman, Eric Luis Uhlmann & Mahzarin R. Banaji. 2009. Understanding & using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97(1). 17–41.10.1037/a0015575Search in Google Scholar

Hewstone, Miles, Mark Rubin & Hazel Willis. 2002. Intergroup bias. Annual Review of Psychology 53. 575–604.10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135109Search in Google Scholar

Islam, Mir Rabiul & Miles Hewstone. 1993. Dimensions of contact as predictors of intergroup anxiety, perceived outgroup variability and outgroup attitude: An integrative model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 19. 700–710.10.1177/0146167293196005Search in Google Scholar

Kamwangamalu, Nkonko M. 2003. Social change and language shift: South Africa. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23. 225–242.10.1017/S0267190503000291Search in Google Scholar

Lass, Roger. 2002. South African English. In Rajend Mesthrie (ed.), Language in South Africa, 104–126. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486692.006Search in Google Scholar

Makihara, Miki & Bambi B. Schieffelin. 2007. Consequences of contact: Language ideologies and sociocultural transformations in Pacific societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195324983.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Mesthrie, Rajend. 2006. Language, transformation and development: A sociolinguistic appraisal of post–apartheid South African language policy and practice. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 24(2). 151–163.10.2989/16073610609486414Search in Google Scholar

Mesthrie, Rajend. 2010. Sociophonetics and social change: Deracialisation of the GOOSE vowel in South African English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14(1). 3–33.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2009.00433.xSearch in Google Scholar

Mesthrie, Rajend. 2017. Class, gender, and substrate erasure in sociolinguistic change: A sociophonetic study of Schwa in deracializing South African English. Language 93(2). 314–346.10.1353/lan.2017.0016Search in Google Scholar

Miller, Norman. 2002. Personalization and the promise of contact theory. Journal of Social Issues 58. 387–410.10.1111/1540-4560.00267Search in Google Scholar

Moors, Agnes & Jan De Houwer. 2006. Automaticity: A theoretical and conceptual analysis. Psychological Bulletin 132(2). 297–326.10.1037/0033-2909.132.2.297Search in Google Scholar

Olson, Michael A. & Russell H. Fazio. 2004. Reducing the influence of extrapersonal associations on the Implicit Association Test: Personalizing the IAT. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86(5). 653–667.10.1037/0022-3514.86.5.653Search in Google Scholar

Painter, Desmond & John Dixon. 2013. Language attitudes in Southern Africa. In Howard Giles & Bernadette Watson (eds.), The social meaning of language, accent and dialect: International perspective on speech styles, 105–124. New York: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar

Pantos, Andrew J. 2010. Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes toward Foreign–accented Speech. Houston: Rice University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Pantos, Andrew J. & Andrew W. Perkins. 2013. Measuring implicit & explicit attitudes toward foreign accented speech. Journal of Language & Social Psychology 32(1). 3–20.10.1177/0261927X12463005Search in Google Scholar

Park, Bernadette & Charles M. Judd. 1990. Measures and models of perceived group variability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59(2). 173–191.10.1037/0022-3514.59.2.173Search in Google Scholar

Parmegiani, Andrea. 2014. The (dis)ownership of English: Language and identity construction among Zulu students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 17(6). 683–694.10.1080/13670050.2014.953775Search in Google Scholar

Pettigrew, Thomas F. 1998. Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology 49. 65–85.10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.65Search in Google Scholar

Power, Tracy. (n.d.). Education and schools in South Africa. ExpatArrivals. http://www.expatarrivals.com/south–africa/education–&–schools–in–south–africa (accessed 20 February 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Prinsloo, Dawn. 2007. The right to mother tongue education: A multidisciplinary, normative perspective. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 25(1). 27–43.10.2989/16073610709486444Search in Google Scholar

Redinger, Daniel. 2010. Language Attitudes and Code-switching Behaviour in a Multilingual Educational Context: The Case of Luxembourg. York, UK: The University of York dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Roodt, Marius. 2011. Research and policy brief: ‘Model C’ is the model to emulate – 1st February 2011. South African Institute of Race Relations. http://irr.org.za/reports–&–publications/research–policy–brief/research–&–policy–brief–model–c–is–the–model–to–emulate–1–february–2011 (accessed 1 March 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Rosseel, Laura, Dirk Speelman & Dirk Geeraerts. 2015. Can social psychological attitude measures be used to study language attitudes?–A case study exploring the personalized Implicit Association Test. Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics. Tübingen, Germany.Search in Google Scholar

Rosseel, Laura, Dirk Speelman & Dirk Geeraerts. 2018. Measuring language attitudes using the personalized Implicit Association Test: A case study on regional varieties of Dutch in Belgium. Journal of Linguistic Geography 6. 20–39.10.1017/jlg.2018.3Search in Google Scholar

Rudman, Laurie A. 2004. Sources of implicit attitudes. Current Directions in Psychological Science 13. 79–82.10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00279.xSearch in Google Scholar

Rudwick, Stephanie. 2008. ‘Coconuts’ and ‘Oreos’: English–speaking Zulu people in a South African township. World Englishes 27(1). 101–116.10.1111/j.1467-971X.2008.00538.xSearch in Google Scholar

Rydell, Robert J., Allen R. McConnell & Diane M. Mackie. 2008. Consequences of discrepant explicit and implicit attitudes: Cognitive dissonance and increased information processing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44(6). 1526–1532.10.1016/j.jesp.2008.07.006Search in Google Scholar

Seutloali, Grace M. 2015. Own–race Bias in Facial Recognition amongst Black, Coloured and White participants. Cape Town: University of Cape Town dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Shoda, Tonya M., Allen R. McConnell & Robert J. Rydell. 2014. Implicit consistency processes in social cognition: Explicit-implicit discrepancies across systems of evaluation. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8. 135–146.10.1111/spc3.12090Search in Google Scholar

Silva, Penny. 1997. South African English: Oppressor or liberator? In The Major Varieties of English, Papers from MAVEN 97.Search in Google Scholar

Son Hing, Leanne S., Greg A. Chung–Yan, Leah K. Hamilton & Mark P. Zanna. 2008. A two-dimensional model that employs explicit & implicit attitudes to characterize prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94(6). 971–987.10.1037/0022-3514.94.6.971Search in Google Scholar

Spitulnik, Debroa. 1998. Mediating unity and diversity: The production of language ideologies in Zambian broadcasting. In B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard & P. Kroskrity (eds.), Language ideologies: Practice & theory, 163–188. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Teferra, Damtew & Phillip G. Altbach. 2004. African higher education: Challenges for the 21st century. Higher Education 47. 21–50.10.1023/B:HIGH.0000009822.49980.30Search in Google Scholar

Tredoux, Colin, John Dixon, Stephen Underwood, David Nunez & Gillian Finchilescu. 2005. Preserving spatial and temporal dimensions in observational data of segregation. South African Journal of Psychology 35(3). 412–432.10.1177/008124630503500302Search in Google Scholar

UCT Admission Policies. http://www.uct.ac.za/usr/news/admissions_debate/FAQs%20UCT%20Admissions%20Policy.pdf (accessed 22 July 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Wa Kivilu, Mbithi, Mandla Diko & Ronnie Mmotlane. 2010. South Africans’ attitudes to social integration in schools. In Benjamin Roberts, Mbithi Wa Kivilu & Yul Derek Davids (eds.), South African social attitudes, 2nd report: Reflections on the age of hope, 128–142. Cape Town: HSRC Press.Search in Google Scholar

Webb, Vic. 2010. Constructing an inclusive speech community from two mutually excluding ones: The third Afrikaans language movement. Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde 47(1). 106–120.10.4314/tvl.v47i1.50495Search in Google Scholar

Wilmot, Kirstin. 2014. ‘Coconuts’ and the middle-class: Identity change and the emergence of a new prestigious English variety in South Africa. English World-Wide 35(3). 306–337.10.1075/eww.35.3.03wilSearch in Google Scholar

Wilson, Timothy D., Samuel Lindsey & Tonya Y. Schooler. 2000. A model of dual attitudes. Psychological Review 107. 101–126.10.1037/0033-295X.107.1.101Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2019-11-12
Published in Print: 2019-11-26

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 18.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijsl-2019-2051/html
Scroll to top button