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BLACK HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ REACTIONS TO BLACK SPEAKERS OF STANDARD AND BLACK ENGLISH
Author(s) -
Hensley Anne
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
language learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.882
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1467-9922
pISSN - 0023-8333
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1972.tb00086.x
Subject(s) - psychology , standard english , context (archaeology) , semantic differential , preference , linguistics , test (biology) , social psychology , paleontology , philosophy , economics , biology , microeconomics
The “Matched Guise” technique was used to measure reactions of 120 black high school students towards taped voices of black persons when they speak Standard English (SE) and when they speak Black English (NNE). Subjects, speakers of NNE, listened to taped voices of bidialectal speakers, the two dialects of each speaker maximally separated on the tapes. Voices were rated on a semantic differential scale for 14 traits obtained from equivalent S s. Subjects revealed an overwhelming preference for the SE guise. Interactions of dialect with speaker sex and student sex are discussed. Three explanations considered are: a) influence of school test context, b) adequacy of traits, and c) that S s may, indeed, accept values of the dominant culture regarding language standardization.