Influence of prior experiences on current attitudes towards varieties of English

Thesis

English language has spread globally, non-native English speakers have already outnumbered native speakers. English is used as the main language in various aspects of our lives: education, business, culture. Such globalization, though, has led English to an inevitable consequence: linguistic change. There are many varieties of English successfully functioning in the world nowadays. Varieties of the English language may differ at all levels of language, including spelling, grammar, vocabulary, phonetics and pragmatics. However, people's perception of various Englishes (e.g.: Indian English, Singaporean English, Nigerian English, etc.) is different. Some English varieties, other than native ones, are seen as broken and deficient. Negative attitudes towards English variations still exist, and the standard language ideology remains strong, even though there is a certain shift happening in a positive direction of acceptance of the changes. To help make these changes it is important to investigate how language attitudes are formed. A number of factors serve to influence the way people judge varieties of English. Those could be cultural and social norms, politics, stereotypes, standard language ideology, familiarity, language proficiency, motivation, experience. The latter one, experience, is one of the most essential, yet one of the most understudied factors. Therefore, the aim of this cross-sectional mixed methods study is to find out how the current attitudes towards varieties of the English language are formed, and, most importantly, what prior experiences best predict those attitudes. The data was collected with the help of two instruments: online questionnaire for the quantitative data, and in-person interviews for the qualitative data. The study took place in Oxford, with students of the University of Oxford. The study revealed that the attitudes towards English in a society that a person grew up in, educational institutions, relationships with the teachers/tutors and teachers’ personalities could potentially predict the positive language attitudes. Also, the linguistics background seemed to have predicted certain positive language attitudes. The current attitudes of the participants proved to be rather positive and understanding, with only disagreement about the standard language. The factors that seemed to have influenced those attitudes include, or could potentially influence, were media, travelling abroad, education institutions (including the University of Oxford), education system peculiarities, political influence, business and teacher-hiring practices. The participants also proposed some ideas of how to change peoples’ attitudes and make them more positive.

Authors: Manikhina, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-7j88zj2bk
• Type of award: MSc taught course
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: ALSLA; online questionnaire; varieties of English; mixed methods; global Englishes; in-person interviews; experience; attitudes; ALSLA2024
• Subjects: English; Experience; Attitudes; Interviews; Applied linguistics; Mixed methods research