110 likes | 305 Views
study 2: social perception of dialects (David Bowie and Wendy Baker). Two types of social perception: Status (we admire these people): intelligence, businesslike, correct, dependable Solidarity (we like these people): friendly, pleasant, funny, similar to you
E N D
study 2: social perception of dialects (David Bowie and Wendy Baker) Two types of social perception: • Status (we admire these people): intelligence, businesslike, correct, dependable • Solidarity (we like these people): friendly, pleasant, funny, similar to you Do we perceive speakers of some varieties of English as being more intelligent or more friendly?
background: Preston’s research on north/south • Tested Northerners (Michiganders) and Southerners (Alabamans) on their perception of northern and southern speech Participants rate speakers from different states on scales of solidarity and status: Example: Politeness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
background: results • Who scored highest on status characteristics? Michigan • Who scored highest on solidarity characteristics? Alabama In other words, we tend to admire speakers of some dialects, but think they are unfriendly. We think speakers of other dialects are friendly, but kind of dumb
replication with Californians, Floridians and Utahans Student participants were given map and were asked to rate each state on a scale from 1 “strongly does not have characteristic” to 6 “strongly has characteristic”
characteristics examined (among others) Status: correct, intelligent Solidarity: pleasant, similar to you States marked in red on the following maps indicate that participants thought this state “very strongly” had this characteristic; pinks and blues indicate that participants thought this state “very strongly” did not have this characteristic
1. correct Florida California Utah
2. intelligent Florida California Utah
3. pleasant California Florida Utah
4. similar to you Florida California Utah
study 2: conclusions • Californians: think they are correct, pleasant and very intelligent • Floridians: think they are correct, intelligent and pleasant and that no one is like them • Utahans: Don’t think they are correct, don’t think anyone is intelligent and think everyone is pleasant • Utahans display the most linguistic insecurity • Californians and Floridians think they score high on both status and solidarity characteristics • Don’t see as strong north/south prejudice as in eastern U.S.