First Advisor

Kimberley Brown

Date of Publication

Winter 2-27-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Department

Applied Linguistics

Language

English

Subjects

English language -- Pronunciation -- Case studies, English language -- Pronunciation by foreign speakers -- Public opinion, English language -- Accents and accentuation -- Case studies, Sociolinguistics

DOI

10.15760/etd.6227

Physical Description

1 online resource (v, 65 pages)

Abstract

This language attitudes study used a matched guise technique to compare participant reactions of American-accented English to Japanese-accented English. Participants (n = 40) were college educated adults living in the Portland area who completed an online survey which measured characteristics related to Status, Solidarity, and Dynamism using semantic differential Likert scales. Results showed that while Japanese-accented English received less favorable ratings on the Status and Solidarity dimensions on a statistically significant level, the small effect size may have indicated that the differences were negligible. Interpreting the results from the data through the World Englishes Kachruvian paradigm, it is argued that English learners and users would benefit by focusing more on achieving intelligibility than on attaining perfect control of an idealized variety of English.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/25465

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