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The dimensions of learner attitudes to general british and general american: a survey-based study

  • Marcin Lewandowski EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 10, 2017

Abstract

The paper investigated learner attitudes to two major pronunciation models in EFL instruction at the university level: GB (General British) and GA (General American). It focused on four dimensions that are central to developing language attitudes: affective, linguistic, pragmatic and socio-cultural. Based on a survey conducted among 100 Polish students majoring in English (half of them trained in GB, the other half in GA), the study aimed to establish a hierarchy of these dimensions to determine which of them is/are key to shaping positive attitudes to the target variety. Of additional interest was how the students viewed the alternative pronunciation model. The study also sought to determine the degree of correlation between the aforementioned dimensions. The survey found that both varieties were assessed most favorably on the affective dimension. Overall, as the target variety, GB was rated more positively than GA; however, stronger correlations between the dimensions were observed among the GA learners.


Marcin Lewandowski Institute of Linguistics Adam Mickiewicz University Collegium Novum al. Niepodległości 4 61-874 Poznań Poland

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6 Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. hab. Magdalena Wrembel (Faculty of English, AMU), Dr. Victoria Kamasa (Institute of Linguistics, AMU) and Dr. hab. Włodzimierz Lapis (Institute of Linguistics, AMU) for the helpful comments and hints that they offered at various stages of this study. Thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for the insightful remarks and suggestions that have made their way into the final version of this paper. Naturally, I alone am responsible for any errors or shortcomings.

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Published Online: 2017-7-10
Published in Print: 2017-6-27

© 2017 Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

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