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The effects of speech style and social class background on social judgements of speakers
Author(s) -
Ryan Ellen Bouchard,
Sebastian Richard J.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1980.tb00348.x
Subject(s) - psychology , style (visual arts) , class (philosophy) , stereotype (uml) , social distance , social class , social psychology , solidarity , standard english , linguistics , medicine , philosophy , disease , archaeology , covid-19 , pathology , artificial intelligence , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , history , politics , computer science , political science
Male speakers of either standard or Spanish‐accented English were presented to 80 undergraduates as individuals with either lower‐class or middle‐class backgrounds. The students rated each speaker on status, solidarity, stereotype, and speech characteristics and also made social distance judgements. For all measures, a significant interaction reflected the fact that lower‐class accented speakers were perceived much less favourably than the corresponding lower‐class standard speakers while the differences associated with speech styles among middle‐class speakers were smaller. The results are discussed in terms of the assumptions listeners presumably make about accented speakers’ social class and beliefs.