First Advisor

Kimberley Brown

Term of Graduation

Winter 2000

Date of Publication

2-10-2000

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-only movement -- United States -- Public opinion, Public opinion -- Oregon -- Portland Metropolitan Area

Physical Description

1 online resource (119 pages)

Abstract

The politics of language is something that all ESL instructors will deal with at some point in their careers. The English Only Movement is an important part of the current trend in language legislation. As ESL instructors we need to understand what motivates people in our communities to support or oppose such legislation, so that we can better prepare our students to operate in that community. Many articles have been written on the English Only Movement, but the vast majority of them are from a historical or politically partisan view. Little research has been done in regard to why this issue is important to people in our communities. This question provided the main rationale for the present study.

The current study, an adaptation of Sullivan & Schatz (1998), examined the reasons individuals in the Portland Metropolitan area hold for their decisions to support or oppose English Only legislation. The three research questions of the present study sought to determine if there are any predictors for the decision to support or oppose language legislation and to determine the ranking in terms of importance for supporting and opposing language legislation. The study also sought to compare this ranking with the ranking from the previous study conducted in Texas by Nancy Sullivan and Robert Schatz in 1998.

Data analysis using Chi-Square, Phi, and the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test revealed significant relationships between the decision to favor or oppose English Only legislation and four of the demographic variables. Significant relationships were found in the area of ethnicity, with Hispanics more likely to oppose EO legislation than Anglos. Women were found to be more likely than men to oppose EO legislation. The data demonstrated an inverse relationship between number of languages spoken and support for EO legislation. It was found that subjects who had discussed this issue with others were more likely to oppose it than those who had not discussed it. There were significant relationships found between ethnicity and level of importance placed on three of the reasons for opposing EO legislation that were provided in the survey.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44943

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