Studi e Saggi Linguistici

V. 53 N. 2 (2015)
Articoli

Between linguistics and social psychology of language: the perception of non-native accents

PDF (English)
  • Silvia Calamai
Silvia Calamai
Università degli Studi di Siena
Biografia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4454/ssl.v53i2.150

Pubblicato 2016-05-06

Parole chiave

  • non-native accents,
  • verbal guise techniques,
  • stereotypes
Informativa sui diritti

Abstract

Listeners can make several attitudinal judgments about a speaker based only on his/her speech. In many cases these judgments are in line with social stereotypes which are associated with the group that is represented by a certain language variety. The matched- and verbal-guise techniques have been extensively used in the studies of language attitudes, in order to obtain reliable results on language as a marker of group identity. This paper presents a concise state-of-the art of research focusing on language attitudes, with particular attention to Italian, and provides grounds for methodological reflection through the discussion of a pilot study conducted by the author focusing on differences in how Standard Italian and three varieties of foreign accented speech (Albanian, Romanian and General American) are perceived by a sample of 97 high school students in a medium-sized city in central Italy.

PDF (English)

Riferimenti bibliografici

  1. ARCURI, L. & CADINU, M. (2011), Gli stereotipi, Il Mulino, Bologna.
  2. BARONI, M. R. (1983), Il linguaggio trasparente. Indagine psicolinguistica su chi parla e chi ascolta, Il Mulino, Bologna.
  3. BILIOTTI, F. & CALAMAI S. (2012), Linguistic opinions and attitudes in Tuscany: verbal guise experiments on the varieties of Arezzo and Florence, in CALAMAI, S., CELATA, C., CIUCCI, L. (2012, eds), Proceedings of the Workshop «Sociophonetics, at the crossroads of speech variation, processing and communication», Edizioni della Normale, Pisa, 1-4 http://www.sns.it/scuola/edizioni/testionline/sociophonetics/.
  4. BOULA DE MAREUIL P., MAROTTA, G., ADDA-DECKER, M., (2004), Contribution of Prosody to the Perception of Spanish/Italian Accents, in Second International Conference of Speech Prosody, Nara (Japan), 2004, pp. 681-684.
  5. BOURHIS, R. Y. & MAASS, A. (2005), Linguistic prejudice and stereotypes, in AMMON, U., DITTMAR, N., K.J. MATTHEIER, & TRUDGILL, P. (2005, eds.), Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, 2nd Edition, Walter De Gruyter, Berlin and New York, pp. 1587-1602.
  6. CALAMAI, S. & RICCI I. (2005), Un esperimento di matched-guise in Toscana, in «Studi Linguistici e Filologici on Line» (Università di Pisa www.humnet.unipi.it/slifo.html), 3.1, pp. 63-105.
  7. CALAMAI, S. (2011), Per una storia della pronuncia degli italiani: opinioni e atteggiamenti intorno alla pronuncia fiorentina, in A. Nesi, S. Morgana, N. Maraschio (2011, eds.), Storia della lingua italiana e storia dell’Italia Unita. L’italiano e lo stato nazionale. Atti del IX Convegno ASLI. Firenze 2-4.XII.2010, Cesati, Firenze, pp. 175-184.
  8. CALAMAI, S. (in press), “Voci migranti: la percezione dell’accento straniero”, in Atti del XLVI Congresso SLI “Plurilinguismo/Sintassi”, Università per Stranieri di Siena.
  9. CAMPBELL-KIBLER, K. (2012), The Implicit Association Test and sociolinguistic meaning, in «Lingua», 122, pp. 753-763.
  10. CLOPPER, C. (2010), Phonetic detail, linguistic experience, and the classification of regional language varieties in the United States, in PRESTON D. R., NIEDZIELSKI N. (eds.) (2010), A Reader in Sociophonetics, De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 203-221.
  11. CLOPPER, C. & PISONI, D. B. (2005), Perception of dialect variation, in Pisoni, D. B., Remez, R. E. (2005, eds.), The handbook of speech perception, Blackwell, Oxford & Malden, Mass., pp. 313-337.
  12. DALTON-PUFFER, C., KALTENBOECK, G., SMIT U. (1997), Learner Attitudes and L2 Pronunciation in Austria, in «World Englishes», 16, pp. 115-128.
  13. DE HOUWER, J. (2003), The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task, in «Experimental Psychology», 50, pp. 77-85.
  14. DE MEO, A., M. PETTORINO, M. VITALE (2012), “Non ti credo”: i correlati acustici della credibilità nell’italiano L2, in BERNINI, G., LAVINIO C., VALENTINI, A., VOGHERA M. (2012, eds.), Competenze e formazione linguistiche. In memoria di Monica Berretta. Atti dell’11° Congresso dell’Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, Guerra, Perugia, pp. 229-247.
  15. DE MEO, A., PETTORINO, M., VITALE, M. (in press), Parli nativo? I correlati acustici dell’accento “nativo” in italiano: uno studio acustico-percettivo su slavofoni e sinofoni, in Atti del XLVI Congresso Internazionale della SLI “Plurilinguismo/Sintassi”, Università per Stranieri di Siena.
  16. DI FERRANTE, L. (2008). Spazi Linguistici in cambiamento. Un’indagine di matched guise a Milano, Napoli e Roma. Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation. Università per Stranieri di Siena
  17. FISKE S. T., CUDDY, A. J. C., GLICK, P. (2006), Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence, in «Trends in Cognitive Sciences», 11, 2, pp. 77-83.
  18. GARRET, P. (2010), Attitudes to languages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  19. GILES, H., POWESLAND P. F. (1975), Speech style and social evaluation, Academic Press, London and New York.
  20. LADEGAARD, H. (1998), National stereotypes and language attitudes: The perception of British, American and Australian language and culture in Denmark, in «Language & Communication», 18, pp. 251-274
  21. LAMBERT, W. E., HODGSON, R. C., GARDNER, R. C., FILLENBAUM, S. (1960), Evaluational reactions to spoken language, in «Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology», 60, pp. 44-51.
  22. LEE, T. L., FISKE S. T. (2006), Not an outgroup, not yet an ingroup: Immigrants in the Stereotype Content Model, in «International Journal of Intercultural Relations», 30, pp. 751-768.
  23. LINDEMANN, S. (2003), Koreans, Chinese, or Indians? Attitudes and ideologies about non-native English speakers in the United States, in «Journal of Sociolinguistics», 7(3), pp. 348-364.
  24. MAROTTA, G. (2008), Sulla percezione dell’accento straniero, in LAZZERONI, R., BANFI, E., BERNINI, G., CHINI, M., MAROTTA, G. (2008, eds.), Diachronica et Synchronica. Studi in onore di Anna Giacalone Ramat, Pisa, ETS, 327-347.
  25. MAROTTA, G. & BOULA DE MAREUIL, P. (2009), Persistenza dell’accento straniero. Uno studio percettivo sull’italiano L2”, in SCHMID, S., SCHWARZENBAC, M. & STUDER, D. (2009, eds.), Atti del 5° Convegno Internazionale AISV, La dimensione temporale del parlato, Universität Zürich, pp. 475-494.
  26. NIEDZIELSKI N. (1999), The effect of social information on the perception of sociolinguistic variables, in «Journal of language and social psychology», 18, 1, pp. 62-85.
  27. NOSEK, B. A., BANAJI, M. R. (2001), The go/no-go association task, in «Social Cognition», 19, 6, pp. 625-664.
  28. PANTOS, A. J. (2012), Defining the cognitive mechanisms underlying reactions to foreign accented speech. An experimental approach, in PÜTZ, M., ROBINSON, J. A., REIF, M. (2012, eds.), Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Social and cultural variation in cognition and language use, Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 427-453
  29. PANTOS, A. J., PERKINS, A. W. (2013), Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Foreign Accented Speech, in «Journal of Language and Social Psychology», 32, pp. 3-20.
  30. PETTORINO, M., DE MEO A., VITALE M., FUSCO GIRARD G. (2013) La perception de certains accents français de la part des enseignants et des futurs enseignants italiens du français langue étrangère: comprehension et attitudes in FALKERT A. (ed., 2013), La perception des accents du français hors de France. Mons: CIPA, pp. 161-176.
  31. PURNELL, T., IDSARDI, W., BAUGH, J. (1999), Perceptual and phonetic experiments in American English dialect identification, in «Journal of Language and Social Psychology», 18, pp. 10-30.
  32. PRESTON, D. R. (1999) (ed.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, Benjamins, Amsterdam, vol. I.
  33. PRESTON, D. R., LONG, D. (2002) (ed.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, Benjamins, Amsterdam, vol. II.
  34. SPEELMAN, D., SPRUYT, A., IMPE, L. & GEERAERTS, D. (2013), Language attitudes revisited: Auditory affective priming, in «Journal of Pragmatics» 52: 83-92.
  35. STRAND E. (1999), Uncovering the role of gender stereotypes in speech perception, in «Journal of Language and Social Psychology», 18, pp. 86-99.
  36. VOLKART-REY, R. (1990), Atteggiamenti linguistici e stratificazione sociale. La percezione dello status sociale attraverso la pronuncia. Indagine empirica a Catania e a Roma, Bonacci, Roma.