Perceptions of sexist language and its relationship to attitudes toward women and social roles : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

The language about women reflects the attitudes of men toward women and to the extent that women use them, the attitudes of women toward themselves. The relationship between language and the attitudes of those who use it is not one-way. Language reflects the attitudes of those who use it but it can also create and maintain attitudes and stereotypes. Hence the feminists' attack on the English language. The trend to using non-sexist language is a conscious effort to change our thought by changing our language. The present study investigated the existence of a relationship between attitudes toward women, social attitudes, and people's perceptions of sexist language for 151 participants. The sample included two student groups (internally enroled students and extramural students) and a non-student sample. The sample completed self-report questionnaires on their judgements of language as sexist, their perceptions of sexist language as a problem, and attitudes toward women and social issues. The findings demonstrated that there is a relationship between sexist language and the attitudes people espouse. Liberal social attitudes and liberal attitudes toward women and gender roles were found to correlate with easier recognition of linguistic sexism. Traditional attitudes toward gender roles and conservative social attitudes resulted in a failure to perceive gender-biased language as sexist

Sociodemographic, psychological and politicocultural correlates in Flemish students' attitudes towards French and English

An analysis of 100 Flemish high-school students' attitudes towards French and English (both foreign languages) revealed complex links etween personality factors, gender, politicocultural identity, communicative behaviour and foreign language attitudes. Attitudes towards English were found to be much more positive than those towards French, despite the fact that the participants had enjoyed a longer and more intense formal instruction in French (it being their second language). The independent variables were found to have stronger effects for French than for English, with the exception of politicocultural identity of the participant, which had a strong effect on attitudes towards French but not English. Overall, it seems that social factors, including exposure to the foreign languages, are linked with lowerlevel personality dimensions and thus shape attitudes towards these languages

Odnos in motiviranost mlajsih ucencev do ucenja tujega jezika

This paper focuses on young foreign language learners’ attitudes and motivations. An overview is given of the main issues in this research area, based on key European studies. Approaches to studying these affective learner characteristics are described. Some attention is devoted to data elicitation techniques and the importance of triangulation. Research findings are presented through overviews of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies carried out in different European settings. The latter are presented in more detail, because their findings seem to be more revealing of the early foreign language learning process. The overall conclusion of this review paper is that young foreign language learners’ attitudes and motivations are not stable learner characteristics but change over time, creating layers of complexity that warrant further research. Suggestions about possible future directions in researching young foreign language learner attitudes and motivations, and the application of its findings are also made. (DIPF/Orig.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS JAVANESE LANGUAGE AND ITS MAINTENANCE BY THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF DIPONEGORO UNIVERSITY

English Department Students of Undip whose parents are Javanese have been exposed to at least three languages namely Javanese, Indonesian, and English. Some of them are learning other foreign languages such as Korean, Japanese, and French. As a local language, Javanese has a certain position in its users. The position can be influenced by its users’ attitudes towards the language. I will show the students’ attitudes towards Javanese and their roles in maintaining Javanese language. I used questionnaires, DCT (Discourse Completion Tasks), non-participant observation, and interview to present the data. To analyze them, I used inferential, distributional, and translational methods. The result indicates that the English Department Students of Undip have positive attitudes towards Javanese and its maintenance. However, there is a tendency that the Javanese language used is shifting. The shift is characterized by various code system namely Indonesian, Basa, Ngoko, sometimes Krama, and even English

Becoming multilingual. Language learning and language policy between attitudes and identity

Many studies on language attitudes have been based on an approach in which languages are examined as an isolated unit; in other words, in these studies the participants are asked about their attitudes towards each of the languages in contact independently, by using what we will label in this chapter as monolingual biased questionnaires. The objective of this paper revolves around the analysis of language attitudes towards trilingualism by means of a holistic questionnaire in two multilingual contexts (the Basque Country and Malta). Our results reveal that the holistic questionnaire can be a useful tool to complement traditional questionnaires and it could lead to further knowledge on languages as a whole, rather than treating them separately. Furthermore, in can be a useful tool in order to enhance language awareness and enable language teachers to reflect both on their own language skills and competence as well as those of their students.peer-reviewe

Own-language use in ELT: exploring global practices and attitudes

In this research paper Graham Hall and Guy Cook explore teacher attitudes to own-language use in the classroom. They conducted a global survey and interviews with practising teachers. They found evidence of widespread own-language use within ELT, and suggest that teachers’ attitudes towards own-language use, and their classroom practices, are more complex than usually acknowledged. The findings also suggest that there is a potential gap between mainstream ELT literature and teachers’ practices on the ground

English as an international language of science and its effect on Nordic terminology: the view of scientists

This chapter is concerned with attitudes to English as an international language of science among Nordic scientists. It reports on a questionnaire completed by 200+ physicists, chemists and computer scientists at universities in five Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The purpose is two-fold: First, it investigates if claims made primarily by representatives of the national language councils about a lack of local language terminology are corroborated by scientists themselves. It is found that Nordic scientists do believe that local language terminology is missing, but the extent to which they consider this problematic or a cause for concern varies. Second, the study compares attitudes across the five national contexts. Previous studies have documented that attitudes towards English held by the general public in the Nordic community can be ranked on a continuum with Icelanders being the most purist and Danes the least (Kristiansen and Sandøy 2010; Kristiansen 2010). This continuum is not replicated among Nordic scientists. Some possible reasons are discussed as well as some implications for language policy

Attitudes to Makaton in the ages on integration and inclusion

The Makaton Vocabulary was developed in the 1970’s and became, and has remained, one of most pervasive and influential pedagogical approaches for children with severe learning difficulties. This article looks at attitudes towards Makaton and compares findings from two studies, carried out in a sample of special schools in the south west of England during 1986 and 1995. Overall, the results suggest that attitudes towards the use of Makaton signs have become more positive. Makaton signs are now regarded, overall, as supporting and facilitating language development, and earlier concerns about stigmatisation have declined. There is some evidence to suggest that this latter change is influenced by changes in attitudes to British Sign Language. The 1986 study predicted that new technology would have a significant impact on attitudes to language and communication systems such as Makaton, but this prediction was not supported in the 2005 study. The article highlights also how different attitudes towards Makaton can exist within the same school, and how this situation can have a significant impact on the educational experiences and opportunities of children with severe learning difficulties. The article concludes that the apparent educational movements of integration or inclusion produce different attitudes towards Makaton and how it is used. However, although Makaton signing has become seen as a tool to create educational inclusion, the extent to which the system itself has actually changed is a contentious issu

Thinking in Chinese vs. Thinking in English: Social Preference and Risk Attitudes of Multicultural Minds

This paper investigates whether language priming activates different cultural identities and norms associated with the language communicated with respect to social preference and risk attitudes. Our contribution is on identifying the conditions where there will be language priming effects. We conduct economic games with bilingual subjects using Chinese and English as instructions. It is found that language priming affects social preference, but only in context involving strategic interactions. In social preference games involving strategic interactions, e.g., the trust game, subjects in the Chinese treatment are more trusting and trustworthy. In individual choice games, such as the dictator game, there is no treatment difference. Further, we also find that language priming affects risk attitudes. Subjects in the Chinese treatment prefer to pick Chinese lucky numbers in Mark Six lottery. These findings suggest that the effect of language priming is context dependent.language, bilingual, biculture, social preference, risk attitudes