AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Non-native Attitudes toward Varieties of English A language attitude survey on Chinese postgraduate students in the University of Edinburgh

by Lu Yang




Institution: University of Edinburgh
Department:
Year: 2011
Keywords: Varieties of English; language attitude survey
Record ID: 1410447
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6042


Abstract

This study investigated the attitudes of 30 Chinese postgraduate students who were studying in the Business School, the University of Edinburgh, toward native and non-native varieties of English. In order to examine the attitudes, this study employed the verbal guise technique, in which seven varieties of English were selected for evaluation in the dimensions of status and solidarity: New York English, London English, Edinburgh English, Singapore English, Japanese English, Indian English, and Chinese English. The overall findings suggested that (1) Native varieties of English were favored by Chinese respondents, in especial the New York English and London English. (2) In terms of the solidarity dimension, the respondents held positive attitudes toward Chinese English. (3) The majority of the respondents in this study were able to identify whether the speech samples were native or non-native, however, the recognition rate of each variety of English was relatively lower.