Showing papers by "Howard Giles published in 1983"

Language attitudes in multilingual settings: Prologue with priorities

Abstract: (1983). Language attitudes in multilingual settings: Prologue with priorities. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development: Vol. 4, Language Attitudes in Multilingual Settings, pp. 81-100.

The effects of language of testing on bilingual pre‐adolescents’ attitudes towards welsh and varieties of English

Abstract: This study, using the matched‐guise technique, was designed (a) to determine how West Welsh pre‐adolescents would react to Welsh speakers reading a passage of prose in one or other of three language varieties (R.P. English [EE] vs. Welsh‐accented English [EW] vs. Welsh [WW]), and (b) to examine what effect language of testing (English vs. Welsh) might have on children's social evaluations of speech styles. The results showed that EW was judged less good and more snobbish than WW while the former was rated as less strong than EE; no differences accrued between EE and WW. Two interaction effects emerged showing that differences arose in the way subjects evaluated EW depending on the language of testing. He was rated as more selfish than either EE or WW when the language of instructions and the scales were in Welsh and less intelligent than both of them when the testing situation was in English. The results are discussed in relation to previous matched‐guise research in Wales and their methodologica...

The Japanese as subordinate group : ethnolinguistic identity theory in a foreign language context

Abstract: Application de la theorie de l'identite ethnolinguistique de H. Giles et P. Johnson (1981) a la situation du japonais face a l'anglais, langue d'une culture percue comme dominante.

Stereotypes of Male and Female Speech: A British Study.

Abstract: (1983). Stereotypes of male and female speech: A British study. Central States Speech Journal: Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 255-256.

New Horizons in the Study of Speech and Social Situations

Abstract: The tireless study of human conduct by social scientists is predicated on the well-founded assumption that regularities in human behavior can be detected, described, and explained. Sociolinguistic studies of speech in its social context demonstrate this well, with a great variety of research showing how variations in speech can be systematically related to speaker characteristics and to facets of the situation (e.g., Ervin-Tripp, 1969; Hymes, 1972; Labov, 1972; Trudgill, 1978). We have argued elsewhere (Smith, Giles, & Hewstone, 1980), however, that preoccupation with the linguistic side of the sociolinguistic endeavor has fostered a casual and sometimes rather naive use of social variables in explanations for linguistic variation. In particular, Giles and Hewstone (in press) expressed serious misgivings about the way that the concept of situation has been employed in sociolinguistics. They drew attention to what they called the “taxonomic” approach to the definition of social situations, an approach that emphasizes the static, objective features of situations and neglects the dynamic nature of social interaction and its consequences for speech. Proponents of this kind of approach strive to create lists and taxonomies of influential situational variables on the basis of commonsense assumptions about how to operationalize situations in meaningful ways, usually without checking these assumptions empirically, or checking them only by referring to the very data that their taxonomies are meant to explain. Moreover, taxonomists provide few suggestions as to how elements of situations combine to influence behavior and tend to ignore the ongoing or unfolding nature of social interaction.

The Second Bristol Conference: a Personal Assessment

Abstract: This Discussant paper provides a personal and largely favourable assessment of the Second International Conference on Social Psychology and Language held in Bristol, July 1983. It compares, impressionistically, the papers presented in 1983 with those delivered at the First Bristol Conference in 1979 by means of 15 evaluatively-loaded dimensions and appraises the contents of the 10 symposia convened on particular themes according to six of these judgmental criteria. This critique suggests that while few advances have been made on some fronts, significant developments have emerged on important others, particularly with respect to functional and theoretical analyses. The paper concludes optimisti cally and locates much previous research in the social psychology of language in one small portion of a three-dimensional space whilst advocating that research priorities ought now to be directed (albeit in the short-term) towards a contrastive segment of this space.