LINGUISTIC STEREOTYPES: NICE ACCENT - NICE PERSON?

Vivian de Klerk and Barbara Bosch ��1��

�Language attitudes and stereotyping�

Ryan et al. (1982:7) define language attitudes as 'any affective,

cognitive or behavioral index of evaluative reactions toward

different language varieties or their speakers', and any such

reactions would naturally be closely tied to emotions and beliefs.

Attitude is a deep-seated and private 'state of readiness rather

than an observable response' (Fasold 1984:147) and is often

distinguished from consciously held opinions, which are more public,

more dependent on the context of elicitation and more easily

expressed.

As humans we have a powerful ability to detect correlations and

build schemas or knowledge structures, which help us to recognise

objects, make judgements and make sense of the complex world around

us. In the abstract, we think of people as comprising sets of

features, a set of schemas formed from numerous interactions; these

impressions about groups are stereotypes, a word used to refer to

'sets of beliefs about ... groups that the believer has little good

reason for holding but that often serve to justify bigotry'.

(Anderson 1980:154)

A stereotype is a socially shared belief that describes an attitude

object in an oversimplified and undifferentiated manner i.e. the

2

public opinion of society in general as contrasted with the opinion

of each individual. Stereotypes are very important in the formation

of the social climate within which language preferences act.

(Hauptfleisch: 1977:13)

How do such stereotypes arise? One might assume they result from

one's experiences with people from the group, but this is not so, as

is shown by studies which reveal huge discrepancies between

stereotypes and reality (Smith 1979; Petersen & Wittig 1979). More

important than experiences are the media, films and in-group

stories; the development of stereotypes seldom has a basis in direct

experience, and is usually filtered through biased secondary

sources. When such impressions �are� built on first-time interaction,

such first-time encounters are seldom genuinely revealing of the

true individual.

While stereotypes need not necessarily be false or negative (though

many are both, as Cameron (1985) points out), typically they

represent the dark side of the human abstraction process; they are

often inaccurate because they simplify what otherwise might have

overwhelmingly diverse meaning, and indirectly influence the

perception and categorisation of people.

Apart from examining the public ways in which language varieties are

treated, one can use the direct approach of asking people about

their opinions and beliefs or use indirect techniques (developed

mainly in the field of social psychology) to measure subconscious or

private attitudes. Among these is the matched guise technique, which

3

involves the reactions of listeners (judges) to the taped recordings

of a number of perfectly bilingual speakers reading a passage at one

time in one of their languages and later a translation equivalent of

the same passage in their second language. 'Judges are asked to

listen to this series of recordings and evaluate the personality

characteristics of each speaker as well as possible using voice cues

only.' (Lambert, 1967:336)

There is no shortage of evidence that, as members of particular

linguistic communities, we have stereotyped ideas about voice,

intonation, paralinguistic signs, phonology, lexicon and style, all

with evaluative connotations. (Smith 1985) These preconceptions have

a profound influence on our subconscious attitudes to languages and

to speakers of these languages, and there is therefore much

potential for research into the validity of these stereotypes. How

do people recognise and evaluate speakers of different languages and

different accents? Do they share common schemas of evaluation? Are

the same features salient markers of all languages? Does the

recognition of speaker mother-tongue cause reassessment of the

speaker in terms of character, status, level of education and so on,

or is it the way s/he speaks that causes the reassessment?

It was questions like these which led us to devise a matched-guise

attitude survey among speakers of the three main languages of the

Eastern Cape: English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. 'If attitude is an

internal state of readiness, rather than an observable response, we

must depend on the person's reports of what their attitudes are or

infer attitudes indirectly from observable behaviour patterns.'

4

(Fasold 1984:147) We wished to investigate the extent to which

speakers in the area were using language and accent to make

judgements about people. 'Language is seen as a means of expressing,

together with a message, a personal and/or a group identity'

(Schmiedt 1991:185), and we were interested in finding out how

Eastern Cape people perceived these identities.

�Power and stereotyping:�

Power is unequally distributed in most societies, and depends not

only on the personal qualities of the individual, but on social

position. There is a relationship between power, stereotypes and

language, and linguistic differences which arise in any community

can generally be attributed to factors such as social status,

solidarity, the forces of socialisation and identification and

modeling - all of which are directly influenced by stereotyped

beliefs within the society. In South Africa, as a result of

historical and political events over the last 200 years, power is

very unequally distributed, and social position depends primarily

and significantly on race and linguistic affiliation, which have

determined education and employment opportunities in the first

instance for the past few hundred years (although the situation is

rapidly changing). Language use therefore reinforces the existing

status differential and one can expect, as a result, a relationship

between the social and political value of a group of speakers and

the social value of languages (and accents) associated with that

group.

5

As Smith (1985:27) says, the problem with stereotypes is that they

rarely carry connotations of 'different but equal' - people have

definite and conspicuous attitudes about which speaker or language

is 'better' or 'superior'. Stereotypes tend to persist for as long

as they reinforce important social inequalities. (Cameron 1985:33)

It is common (especially in writings about sexism in English) to

come across the idea that, in general, the in-power group's

linguistic characteristics will tend to be positively valued,

regardless of what these characteristics are, but the matter is not

that simple in South Africa, and an understanding of linguistic

stereotypes today requires an historical perspective: after an

extended period of English domination in the country, the Afrikaner

nationalists won favour in 1948, and White Afrikaans speakers have

been in power politically ever since then. On the face of it, this

would imply that their language and accent should stereotypically be

positively regarded. However the recently abandoned apartheid policy

of the (Afrikaans) National Party led to enormous injustice and

bitterness. Attempts by black pupils to reject enforced instruction

through the medium of Afrikaans in their schools resulted in the

bloody Soweto riots of 1976 - evidence of the resentment fostered

against Afrikaans and all it represented. It seems that Afrikaans

has acquired some very negative connotations, despite the fact that

there are huge numbers of Afrikaans speakers who are other than

white and many white Afrikaans speakers who have never supported

apartheid.

In addition one needs to realise the complexity of the linguistic

6

situation in South Africa. Figure 1 reports the 1991 preliminary

Census figures for home language distribution, showing that the

speakers of the two offical languages, English and Afrikaans, are

very much in the minority. Unfortunately independent homelands were

excluded from the census and no statistics have yet been provided

regarding regional distribution.

.M:1

�Table 1: 1991 Census Results�

�White Coloured Asian Black Total

�Afrikaans:� 2 602744 2 432132 11304 72990 5 119169

�English� 1 751968 441718 820687 37369 3 051742

�Both� 35986 21567 1980 680 60141

�Xhosa� 1035 7003 369 2 281774 2 290181

�Ndebele (N&S)� 371171

�Sotho (N&S)� 4 780602

�Tswana� 1 237930

�Tsonga� 1 090760

�Venda� 96935

�Zulu� 6 972714

.M:2

�A Brief overview of attitude studies to date:�

Attitude surveys carried out in South Africa to date have tended to

focus on the two official languages (English and Afrikaans) and

there is little material available regarding attitudes to other

languages. Vorster and Proctor (1976) examined the attitudes to

English and Afrikaans of 200 black first year students (all Eastern

Cape Xhosa speakers) at Fort Hare University. They perceived English

speakers as better-looking, kinder, more likeable and sociable, and

with a higher status job than the Afrikaans speaker, who was seen as

a 'strong' person.

Hauptfleisch (1977) surveyed the attitudes of White urban adults to

English and Afrikaans as official languages, and to bilingualism in

7

these languages; speakers from the two groups reported very

different needs, applications and motivations. He found Afrikaners

more proficient in English than vice versa, and English respondents

reported a very low motivation to learn or use Afrikaans. The

research highlighted the relative ease with which the urban

Afrikaner forsakes the mother tongue (49 of his informants reported

a permanent shift to English), the problems of maintaining language

purity, the falling number of immigrants who select Afrikaans

schools for their children, and the way in which Afrikaans speakers

in other-than-white racial groups are turning to English as an

elected language of identity.

Schuring et al. (1983), using 100 Black fieldworkers, examined the

language habits of over 3000 Black informants in 25 districts

country-wide and report no marked imbalance in their use of English

and Afrikaans (for speaking, reading, radio listening etc.) apart

from a tendency for preference for English to rise with socio-

economic status.

According to Ridd (1981:194) 'District 6 people see Afrikaans

essentially as a hard language of command, such as they hear it

spoken to them by �die boere� (Afrikaners). The use of �suiwer� (pure)

Afrikaans ... by 'coloured' people is associated with the servility

of the �plaasjapie� ( a derogatory term for a farm worker) to the

White �baas� (master)' (cited in Wood 1987:78). The tendency is

to prefer English, and McCormick (1983) affirms this tendency among

coloured Afrikaans speakers in the Cape Peninsula, who see English

as a signal of urbanisation and sophistication, and of education as

8

well.

Wood (1987:79-80) reports that 'there is an increasing trend towards

introducing English medium of instruction in schools which were

previously more Afrikaans orientated, so that most coloured schools

in the peninsula are now dual medium, with the parents being able to

choose which language their children are to receive instruction in.

It is a common phenomenon that children who speak mostly or even

exclusively Afrikaans at home receive instruction in English at

school.' He notes a massive swing to English in one generation, as

far as language preference in education is concerned, and declining

support for Afrikaans among certain Afrikaans speakers.

Harlech-Jones (1990) reports a largely positive attitude among

teachers towards the use of English as medium of instruction in

Namibian secondary schools, who were doubtful about the

acceptability of using vernaculars (1990:204).

Finally, pupils from a range of 29 Western Cape secondary schools

(private and government) favoured English as the major (but not the

only) medium of instruction in schools, and as the major or even

sole official language (Young et al. 1991); Xhosa scholars displayed

surprisingly little hostility to Afrikaans, (Afrikaans is a major

language in the Western Cape, used not only by Whites) and were not

as strongly in favour of mother-tongue instruction as the other

informants.

9

�Reasons for this study:�

One of the reasons why it is vitally important to assess language

attitudes and stereotypes is the fact that they lead to

overgeneralisation, to overlooking individual differences, and they

most often relate to minority groups. It has been shown, for

example, that the language of women has been devalued as a result of

the entrenchment of the stereotyped views held by members of

society. And these views are very real, as shown by Goldberg (1968),

Addington (1968) and Broverman et al. (1972) all of whom endorse the

idea that men and women are strongly associated with stereotyped

characteristics in people's minds.

The expectations stereotypes generate can have undesirable

constraining effects on person-perception, and have behavioral

consequences. They are manifested in comic strips, cartoons and

novels and these folk-linguistic beliefs about language are often

accepted as common sense in a society. Such pervasive, widely shared

expectations about people in a linguistic category inevitably exert

subtle pressure on those people to display behaviours, traits and

attitudes consistent with them. The danger of stereotypes is that

they can be self-fulfilling prophecies, guiding not only thinking,

but linguistic behaviour as well (Cameron 1985:155.)

Questions concerning the influence of stereotypes and values on the

interpretation and perception of linguistic behaviour are relevant

to any research which compares the speech of the statusful dominant

group in society with other groups. As Smith (1979) points out,

10

these speech stereotypes merit study in their own right for the

insight they give into what is assumed by listeners, and will tend

to be expected until disconfirmed. These attitudes and assumptions

may define listeners' predispositions towards speakers, and this

could influence interaction patterns, particularly in gate-keeping

encounters, where power comes into play. Such attitudes will also

have educational consequences, influencing teachers' expectations

and pupils' success, especially in second-language teaching and

learning.

South Africa now stands on the brink of a new dispensation, and has

the opportunity to establish a new language policy; democracy and

consultations at all levels should form the foundation stones of any

decisions which are made concerning language policy. There has been

no recent survey of opinions about language in the Eastern Cape and

this research project aims to provide some insights in this area.

A few caveats should precede further discussion: the susceptibility

of scientific inquiry to personal bias, especially in the field of

sociolects and ethnic dialects, requires scientists to admit that

their ethical commitment to objectivity often falls short of the

goal. It is acknowledged that stereotypes do have a possible

subconscious influence on researchers, subtly determining their

choice of data (Cameron 1985:44); reports and summaries often

involve generalisations and simplifications which result in too

narrow a view of the functions served by particular linguistic

forms, and the type of question researchers ask and the answers

they find are liable to be influenced by the values and stereotypes

11

which prevail. 'Quite clearly the eye of the beholder can make a

dramatic difference to what is perceived and presented to the

reader.' (Holmes 1986:18)

Indeed, some have argued that a study of language attitudes is

inherently biased and lacks explanatory power (Bernard 1975; Unger

1978); others assert that such research only reinforces the very

stereotypes it is trying to get away from (Bart 1971). Whatever the

case, it is vital that the political and societal implications of

research findings be addressed in a responsible fashion, so that

potential misuse of data is avoided.

�Methodology:�

English, Afrikaans and Xhosa are the three major languages of the

Eastern Cape. This paper reports on an attitude survey undertaken in

order to gauge the attitudes of 298 adult English, Afrikaans and

Xhosa speakers in the Eastern Cape to each of these three languages,

and to the accents associated with each of them; de Klerk and Bosch

(in press) reports on the statistics in terms of language and accent

preferences and this paper focusses specifically on the stereotyped

views of respondents regarding personal characteristics of speakers.

The selected instrument for this research was the matched-guise

technique, in order to elicit responses to all three languages

used by three male tri-lingual speakers. All were in their mid-

thirties, and they were mother-tongue speakers of English, Afrikaans

and Xhosa respectively.

12

The aim was to interview a wide range of people, (in terms of sex,

age and educational level) all of whom had been resident in the

Eastern Cape for a minimum of 5 years. A short text (see Appendix

1) on the culturally neutral topic of getting up in the morning was

translated into each of the languages under investigation and each

reader was taped reading �each� text (approximately 60 seconds per

text). The 9 recordings were heard by informants in random order.

'The average person's ability to identify a dialect is based more on

overall impression than on conscious knowledge of the vowel and

consonant sounds which characterise particular dialects' (Lanham

1967:14). In a study concerned with perceptions and attitudes, the

factor of overall impression is important, and of particular

interest were the attitudes to the various accents, as determined by

each reader's mother-tongue.

A questionnaire was prepared, after trialling on 10 people, which

asked informants to rate voices in terms of 10 personal traits, each

to be judged on a scale of 1 to 7. (See Appendix 2). This

questionnaire was translated into the three languages under

investigation, so that informants could respond in their respective

mother tongues. Informants were requested to write down a

hypothetical occupation for each voice as well. The final section

requested some biographical information from informants and asked

questions about their language preferences (results not reported in

this paper).

Fieldworkers were recruited on the basis of their mother tongue

(equal representation from each language group was desirable) and of

13

their geographical origins (Eastern Cape informants were required).

Careful training, stressing the need for informants to be assured of

the good intentions and solidarity of the interviewers, preceded the

administering of any questionnaires, especially in view of the

sensitive and personal nature of the topic. Each interview lasted

approximately twenty minutes.

�The personal characteristics�

Lambert (1967) categorised the personality dimensions on which

judges rate speakers into three groups: �competence �(intelligence,

industriousness) �personal integrity� (honesty, helpfulness) and

�attractiveness� (friendly, sense of humour). The studies reviewed in

Edwards (1985) show that different accents and languages get rated

differently along these dimensions, showing covert and overt

prestige markers. Standard accents and dialects usually connote high

status and competence; regional, ethnic and lower-class varieties

are associated with greater speaker-integrity and attractiveness.

Traits (see Appendix 2) were selected to conform with Lambert's

(1967) categories, and were restricted to 10 after trialling, in

order to avoid tedium and boredom on the part of informants, and to

avoid duplication. These traits were randomly ordered on the

questionnaire, in order to avoid clustering of similar traits;

physical or external characteristics (e.g. attractive) were mingled

with more intrinsic or personal traits (e.g. honesty). Respondents

were asked to follow their intuitions when hearing the voices, 'not

to think too hard', and to leave out any categories where they felt

14

unable to make a judgement.

�Results:�

Of the 298 respondents, 131 were English, 69 Afrikaans, 73 Xhosa and

26 spoke two or more of these languages. They were fairly evenly

distributed in terms of sex, age, background and length of domicile

in the area and analysis of responses in terms of these factors

revealed no significance (details are reported in de Klerk and Bosch

1993 (in press). Educational backgrounds varied more and did have a

significant influence (Chi-square 0.0059, val 27.804, Df 12).

�Ease of response:�

Despite the option not to judge every voice on every trait, most

informants gave a response; the table below reflects the relative

ease with which the different traits were judged, as well as the

average rating assigned overall by all informants across the board

for each trait (a score of 4 is neutral, lower than 4 is a positive

judgment). Traits are numbered in order of appearance on the

questionnaire, and subsequent references in this paper will be to

these numbers.

.M:1

� % of responses Average rating�

1. Reliable: 89,4% 3.75

2. Honest 87,9% 3.54

3. Friendly 88,8% 3.83

4. Intelligent 92,6% 3.86

5. Attractive 78,7% 4.49

6. Competent 86,8% 3.93

7. Educated 93,9% 3.73

8. Leader 85,7% 4.50

9. Confident 92,3% 4.07

10. Entertaining 91,2% 4.70

.M:2

15

As far as ease of response is concerned, the ranking appears to be

fairly random, apart from the fact that informants clearly had

greater difficulty in rating speakers in terms of 'attractiveness',

perhaps because this term is ambiguous in its reference to external,

physical characteristics or more intrinsic qualities.

When one compares average ratings with response rate, there is a

pattern of correlation: with some exceptions, a high response rate

is matched with a positive response and vice versa. One can

therefore assume that the easier it was to make a judgement, the

more positive that judgement was likely to be. It is also very

noticeable that the items ordered last in the questionnaire tended

to get the most negative ratings. Either the position of these

categories is responsible for their low overall average scores, or

the topic of the text might have had an influence on the respondents

judgements: it was not particularly interesting or entertaining.

Figure 1 illustrates the overall trends for each language group in

choice of rating categories (1 is highly positive, 7 highly

negative) and it reveals an overall tendency across the board for

informants to cluster around a neutral judgement for all traits.

There were more �extremely� negative judgements than �extremely�

positive ones.

Figure 1 about here

16

�The effect of accent on judgements:�

It is important to remember that voice could not be separated from

accent for the purposes of this analysis, because whenever speaker A

is heard, one hears his voice �and� his accent. For ease of reference,

the term �accent� will be used.

The three speakers had English, Afrikaans and Xhosa accents

respectively, and when scores for each speaker were analysed to

determine the effect of their accents on informants' ratings,

results showed that throughout, the most negative ratings were

assigned to the Afrikaans accent. In contrast, English and Xhosa

both received fairly low (positive) scores, with Xhosa very narrowly

ahead of English. Chi square values were �all� highly significant.

Analyses of Variance (henceforth Anovas) were applied to the overall

mean ratings assigned when only accent was taken into account, and

again these showed high levels of significance, as evident in Table

2.

.M:1

�Table 2: The effect of accent on ratings�

�Traits:� �Accent:�

� English Afrikaans Xhosa Anova (Df:2)�

� F P Where?�

Reliability 3.5 4.0 3.6 28.08 0.000 not X/E

Honesty 3.4 3.7 3.4 15.38 0.000 not X/E

Friendliness 3.8 4.2 3.4 62.89 0.000 all

Intelligence 3.5 4.3 3.7 56.23 0.000 all

Attractiveness 4.2 4.9 4.2 46.35 0.000 not X/E

Competence 3.7 4.2 3.8 26.83 0.000 not X/E

Education 3.3 4.1 3.7 49.41 0.000 all

Leadership 4.2 4.8 4.3 27.29 0.000 not X/E

Confidence 3.9 4.4 3.8 40.46 0.000 not X/E

Entertaining 4.7 5.0 4.2 45.06 0.000 all

�Sum� 38.2 43.6 38.1

.M:2

Analyses to determine which accent received the most strongly positive

17

ratings (1 and 2 on the scale) for each trait revealed that the English

and Xhosa accents shared the honours equally, and the Afrikaans accent

was rated least positively for every single trait. Trends for the

assignment of most strongly negative ratings (6 and 7 on the scale)

repeated this pattern, with the Afrikaans accent receiving the most;

next in line came the Xhosa accent which was perceived slightly less

favourably than the English accent in 7 out of the 10 traits.

Keeping in mind the fact that an average rating of 4.0 or lower is a

positive one, we need to note that the English accent was most

favourably regarded in terms of education, honesty, intelligence and

reliability; the Xhosa speaker gets a strongly positive rating for

honesty and friendliness, but the Afrikaans speaker receives only

one positive rating on average: for honesty - and this score is

still the least positive for that trait across all three groups.

�The effect of language only on ratings:�

When responses were analysed in terms of each of the languages heard

on the tape, a clear trend was revealed: in every case English

(regardless of who spoke it) was judged more favourably than

Afrikaans or Xhosa, which were very close overall, although Xhosa

was slightly more positively perceived than Afrikaans; chi-square

tests revealed high levels of significance throughout. Table 3

indicates the results of Anovas, and for each trait there is an

indication of where the significant differences lie. (Also see

Figure 2)

.M:1

18

�Table 3: The effect of Language on ratings�

�Traits:� �Language:�

English Afrikaans Xhosa Anova (Df:2)

(E) (A) (X) F P Where?

Reliability 3.5 3.8 3.9 14.31 0.000 not A/X

Honesty 3.2 3.5 3.8 28.74 0.000 all

Friendliness 3.6 3.9 3.9 13.76 0.000 not A/X

Intelligence 3.6 4.0 3.9 11.74 0.000 not A/X

Attractiveness 4.1 4.6 4.5 19.49 0.000 not A/X

Competence 3.6 4.1 4.0 14.67 0.000 not A/X

Education 3.4 3.9 3.8 26.29 0.000 not A/X

Leadership 4.2 4.7 4.4 18.45 0.000 not X/E

Confidence 3.7 4.3 4.1 19.83 0.000 all

Entertaining 4.4 4.8 4.7 12.86 0.000 not A/X

�Total:� 37.3 41.6 41.0

.M:2

Put Figure 2 about here

Speakers who used English (regardless of their accent) were rated at

4.0 or better with regard to 8 out of the 10 traits (not

'attractive' and 'entertaining'); those who used Afrikaans received

ratings of 4.0 or better for only 4 of the traits, while those who

spoke in Xhosa for 5 of the 10 (though none under 3.8). Afrikaans

and Xhosa speakers were consistently more negatively perceived than

speakers of English, and the Anova results indicate that a high

degree of significance can be attached to this difference, except in

the case of the 'leadership' trait.

Two-way Anovas, testing for interaction between language and accent

were all highly significant but revealed high levels of interaction for

every trait. Multiple analyses of variance (Manovas) were also carried

out on the data, taking all the traits together and analysing them in

terms of accent and language, and while the results (listed below) are

highly significant, there were high levels of interaction present again.

19

F Df P

Accent 12.84 20.34 0.000

Language 5.47 20.34 0.000

Accent/Lang 7.12 40.65 0.000

Table 4 presents a cross-tabulation of all traits by accent (A) and

language (L) and reveals consistently high judgements for English in

most combinations, followed by Xhosa. Speakers are positively judged

when using their mother tongue in every case.

.M:1

�Table 4: A cross-tabulation of Accent (�A�) and Language (�L�)�

�Traits:�

��A L� 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Avg�

Eng Eng 3.0 2.9 3.3 3.0 3.6 3.3 2.6 3.8 3.3 4.3 3.3

Afr 3.6 3.4 3.8 3.4 4.2 3.6 3.3 4.2 4.0 4.8 3.8

Xho 4.0 3.8 4.1 3.9 4.7 4.1 4.0 4.5 4.4 5.1 4.4

Afr Eng 4.2 3.6 4.2 4.6 5.0 4.4 4.5 5.1 4.7 5.2 4.5

Afr 3.7 3.4 4.1 4.1 4.7 4.0 3.9 4.8 4.3 5.0 4.2

Xho 4.5 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.8 4.4 4.3 4.7 4.5 5.1 4.5

Xho Eng 3.3 3.3 3.2 3.2 3.6 3.4 3.2 3.6 3.2 4.0 3.4

Afr 4.3 3.9 3.9 4.6 4.9 4.8 4.8 5.3 4.8 5.0 4.7

Xho 3.2 3.2 3.3 3.5 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.9 3.3 4.1 3.5

.M:2

�The effect of respondent's mother-tongue on ratings:�

Manovas which analysed ratings (for the ten traits combined) testing for

correlation between respondents' mother tongue (MT), accent and language

showed high levels of statistical reliability, but on the whole no

correlations. Traits in which there were strong correlations with no

interaction have been listed in Table 5.

.M:1

�Table 5: Manovas of Accent, Language and mother tongue (MT)�

� F Df P Interaction�

�Accent� 10.37 20.31 0.000 in all traits

�Lang� 4.44 20.31 0.000 in all traits

�MT� 15.02 20.31 0.000 in all traits

�Acc/Lang� 6.25 40.58 0.000 in all traits

�Acc/MT� 3.29 40.58 0.000 �not� in traits 3,6,8,9,10

�Lang/MT� 2.21 40.58 0.000 �not� in traits 2,7

�All� 1.70 80.98 0.000 �not� in traits 1,2,5,8,9

.M:2

20

Some interesting trends emerged when overall ratings were analysed in

terms of the language group of the informants. Table 6 lists average

ratings for each of the traits (1 to 10):

.M:1

�Table 6: Ratings in terms of mother tongue of informants�

�MT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Sum:�

English 3.7 3.4 3.7 4.0 4.6 4.0 3.9 4.7 4.1 5.1 41.2

Afrikaans 3.4 3.1 3.7 3.4 4.2 3.5 3.2 4.1 3.7 4.3 37.6

Xhosa 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.0 4.3 4.2 3.8 4.4 4.2 4.4 41.6

.M:2

The most strongly positive responses are from Afrikaans speakers,

especially with regard to honesty, education, reliability and

intelligence. English and Xhosa speakers show more conservatism in their

ratings. In 6 of the traits, the mode (score assigned most often) for

Xhosa speakers was 5 or more , with only 2 similarly negative modes for

English and none for Afrikaans. It is interesting to note that both

English and Xhosa speakers had a mode of 7 for 'entertaining'.

Figure 3 illustrates the percentage of ratings per category when

informants' rated their respective mother-tongues spoken with a mother-

tongue accent. Clearly informants are most strongly positive when

hearing mother-tongue accents, and there is a general bias towards the

positive side (categories 1 to 4), with the English least strongly

positive about themselves. Xhosa informants were particularly favourably

inclined to mother-tongue Xhosa, assigning this speaker the highest

percentage of positive scores except in the category of education,

leadership and confidence. Both English and Afrikaans speakers were most

strongly positive with respect to their mother tongues when rating

speakers in terms of honesty, intelligence and education. Lowest scores

assigned for each group are interesting: English and Afrikaans

informants were most damning with respect to entertainment, and Xhosa

21

with respect to leadership. It is worth noting that Afrikaans speakers

were the least negative about themselves, and assigned no 7's at all.

Insert Figure 3 about here

�Occupations:�

Informants experienced some difficulty in deciding on hypothetical

occupations for the voices they heard, 43.1% being left blank.

It is worth noting that 64% of the Xhosa informants did not assign any

occupation, especially when hearing Afrikaans (irrespective of accent).

The reasons for this are difficult to pinpoint, but they may have lacked

exposure to the wide range of occupations more commonly available to

those who are socially more mobile.

In general, responses were ingenious and varied, which often rendered

results difficult to interpret. On the basis of the mean scores which

were assigned by �all� respondents to the 47 most-cited occupations

(mentioned by at least 5 respondents) occupations were categorised into

high (a score of less than 34), medium (a score between 34 and 45) and

low status (a score higher than 45). The list below indicates some of

the more typical occupations in each category:

.M:1

�Table 7: Occupational Categories�

�High status Medium status Low status�

lecturer/teacher clerk/salesman post office

professor bank teller policeman

businessman student artisan

accountant driver sweeper

lawyer technician railway worker

manager farmer petrol attendant

doctor civil servant unemployed

minister electrician gardener

broadcaster interpreter security guard

.M:2

22

The majority of English (49,1%) and Xhosa (58,3%) mother-tongue

speakers assigned medium-status jobs, while most Afrikaans speakers

assigned high-status jobs (45,5%). Of all three groups, Xhosa

speakers (9,9%) least often assigned low-status occupations.

(Pearson chisquare: Val: 38.189, Df 4; P 0.000). When listening to

the English accent (irrespective of the language used) 50,7% of

respondents assigned high-status occupations, while for Xhosa and

Afrikaans accents, the majority (44,1% and 60,8% respectively) were

assigned medium status occupations.

Of the 3 languages, English was most often associated with high

status occupations (40,1%) followed by Xhosa (30,6%) and Afrikaans

(29,8%). As far as low-status occupations are concerned, Afrikaans

was assigned most (20,7%), followed by English (15,5%) and Xhosa

(14%). An overwhelming percentage (68,7%) assigned high-status

occupations to the English person speaking his mother-tongue, while

the Afrikaans and Xhosa speakers more frequently were assigned

medium status occupations when speaking their respective mother-

tongues.

�Discussion:�

Despite the expectation that with power comes positive stereotyping,

this survey reveals the very opposite: the language and accent of

those in officialdom and power in South Africa (the White South

African Afrikaans speakers) is pervasively and unambiguously

rejected by all Eastern Cape informants, and those who speak it are

negatively rated and stereotyped as less appealing across a range of

23

personal characteristics.

In contrast, all the analyses yield convincing evidence that in the

Eastern Cape, English is very highly regarded by all three language

groups. This accords with the findings of others such as Lambert et

al. (1960), who found that both French and English groups in

Montreal were more positive to English. Schmiedt (1991) also

reports that English, across Africa as a whole, enjoys positive

stereotypes, high international prestige and is an idealised world

language, associated with modern successful educated elite, acting

as a gateway to success, employment and education, among other

things.

This study endorses the views of Edwards (1985) that speech can

evoke stereotyped reactions reflecting differential views of social

groups. Standard accents and dialects usually connote high status

and competence, and English, acknowledged as a world language, is

shown to connote more than that to our informants, regardless of

their linguistic background. It would appear from this study that

speakers of English, particularly those who are mother-tongue

speakers, are warmly regarded, and people are predisposed to think

highly of them. Such positive connotations for English are not

simply attributable to the social and political status of its

speakers in South Africa, for they are very much in a linguistic

minority and do not hold political power; the popularity of English

is probably a backlash result of a rejection of standard Afrikaans,

and a need for an international language which could bring with it

opportunities for success in all spheres of life. In South Africa,

24

English is the language of commerce, of entertainment and of the

anti-government press. It also represents upward social mobility

among black and coloured speakers (McCormick 1983, Schuring 1983)

It is interesting to note a more positive view of English among non-

English speakers than among mother-tongue English speakers, who,

perhaps because of a total lack of threat to their own language,

are the most moderate in rating their mother tongue. The tendency

for speakers of the less prestigious languages (in this case

Afrikaans and Xhosa) to be attracted to the more prestigious

language is also evident, alongside the covert positive connotations

they attach to their respective mother-tongues. One can see this

clearly with respect to both Xhosa and Afrikaans.

Xhosa, a regional, ethnic language of less privileged members of

society in the Eastern Cape, emerges as a language with a number of

supporters, who stereotype its speakers as reliable, honest and

friendly people; it is particularly highly regarded by its own

speakers, who give it strongly positive ratings, despite their

attraction to English as well; it's speakers received the most

positive rating of all in terms of 'entertaining'. Clearly it is

associated with greater speaker integrity and attractiveness,

concepts of in-group solidarity.

In the Eastern Cape Afrikaans is in a double-bind: its own speakers

naturally feel a strong loyalty and affection for the language which

comes through in analyses of mother-tongue responses; however, they

do not enjoy support beyond the boundaries of their own language;

25

there is evidence that Afrikaans speakers themselves are drawn to

English, and even Xhosa in preference to their own language. Such

views probably result from the increasing levels of public awareness

in South Africa recently of the practical implications of impending

political restructuring. It is important to remember that White

Afrikaans speakers form only about half of all Afrikaans speakers in

the community, and the other-than-white Afrikaans speakers have had

little share in the political, social and educational advantages of

their white brethren over the past 50 years; their language has

become tainted, through no fault of their own, and despite their

understandable emotive and intellectual bond to Afrikaans, these

speakers appear to be highly amenable to linguistic adjustment.

According to Hauptfleisch (1977:8) 'to the Afrikaner language

loyalty is an important matter, related directly to cultural

identity and the very existence of Afrikaans' - the language is a

cultural treasure to be cherished, and to deny it is to deny

Afrikanerhood, and therefore a heritage. The results of our survey

indicate some measure of support by Afrikaners for Afrikaans, but

not as much as one might expect - indeed there are clear signs of a

readiness among many respondents to embrace other languages more

fully.

Lambert et al. (1960:49) found 'the prediction was not supported

that more skill with the other group's language, which would permit

more intimate interaction, would lead to .... favourableness of

evaluational responses to the guises.' We would agree that

competence in other languages does not appear to have influenced

26

perceptions of those languages; evidence for this comes from the

fact that �all� South African children are obliged to learn English

and Afrikaans at school, and are exposed to equal proportions of

these languages in the media; despite this, attitudes held by both

English and Afrikaans speakers towards Xhosa (a language in which

very few are competent and to which very few are exposed daily) were

very much more favourable than those towards Afrikaans.

Whatever is found to be the case, it is important to be aware that

discrimination against people may well be linked to the sort of

language they use. Language can be linked to social and educational

disadvantage, particularly in the multilingual classroom, where

teachers' preconceptions, based on stereotyped assessments of pupils

because of their language and accents, can become self-fulfilling

prophecies. In addition, negative attitudes to a second language can

interfere with successful learning of that language; the more

positive motivation a learner has towards that language, the better

the prospects of success. Times are changing, and language policies,

particularly with regard to education in South Africa, are changing

with them. Awareness among educators and language planners of the

subtle power of linguistic stereotypes such as those revealed in

this survey, especially if they are unjustified, may counteract

their insidious power.

�References�

Addington, D. (1968). The relationship of selected vocal

characteristics to personality perception. �Speech Monographs�

35:492-503.

27

Anderson, J.R. (1980). �Cognitive Psychology and its Implications�.

London: Freeman and Co.

Bart, P. (1971). Sexism and social science: from the gilded cage to

the iron cage. �Journal of Marriage and the Family� 33, 734-745.

Bernard, J. (1975). �Women, Wives, Mothers: Values and Options�.

Chicago: Aldine.

Broverman, I., Vogel, S., Broverman, D., Clarkson, F. & Rosenkrantz,

P. (1972). Sex role stereotypes: a current appraisal. �Journal of �

�Social Issues� 28:(2) 59-78.

Cameron, Deborah (1985). �Feminism and Linguistic Theory�. London:

Macmillan

de Klerk Vivian A. & Bosch, Barbara. (1993) English in South Africa:

the Eastern Cape Perspective �English Worldwide�. In press.

Edwards, J. (1985). �Language, Society and Identity�. London:

Blackwells.

Fasold, Ralph (1984). �The Sociolinguistics of Society�. London:

Blackwells.

Goldberg, P. (1968). Are women prejudiced against women? �Transaction�

6:28-30.

Harlech-Jones, Brian (1990). �You taught me language: the �

�implementation of English as a medium of instruction in Namibia�.

Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

Hauptfleisch, T. (1977). �Language Loyalty in South Africa: Vol 1 �

�Bilingual policy in South Africa - opinions of white adults in �

�urban areas.� Pretoria: HSRC.

Holmes, Janet (1986). Functions of you know in women's and men's

speech �Language in Society� 15:1-22.

Lambert, W. Hodgson R., Gardner, R. & Fillenbaum, S. (1960).

28

Evaluational reactions to spoken languages. �Journal of Abnormal �

�and Social Psychology�. 60:44-51.

Lambert, W. (1967). A social psychology of bilingualism �Journal of �

�Social Issues� 23:91-109.

Lanham, Len W. (1967). �The Way We Speak�. Pretoria: Van Schaik.

McCormick, Kay (1983). �Attitudes to the two official languages and �

�their dialects in Cape Town� Unpublished paper University of Cape

Town.

Petersen, A. and Wittig, M (eds.) (1979). �Sex-related Differences in �

�Cognitive Functioning: Developmental Issues�. New York: Academic.

Ridd R. ((1981) �Position and identity in a divided community� PhD

thesis: Oxford University.

Ryan E, Giles, H. & Sebastian, R. (1982). �Attitudes towards language �

�variation�. London: Edward Arnold.

Schmied, Joseph (1991). �English in Africa.� London: Longman.

Schuring, G. K. & Yzel M.K. (1983). �'n Ondersoek na die taalsituasie �

�in die Suid Afrikaanse swartgemeenskap� Verslag TLK/L-9: Deel 1

Pretoria: HSRC.

Smith, P. (1979). Sex markers in speech. In Scherer K. & Giles H.

(eds) �Social Markers in Speech� Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Smith, P. (1985). �Language, the Sexes and Society�. Oxford:

Blackwell.

Unger, R. (1978). �All the Sexes�. New York: Harper.

Vorster, J. & Proctor, L. (1976). Black attitudes to white languages

in South Africa: a pilot study. �The Journal of Psychology� 92:103-

108.

Young, D., Ratcliffe, P., Boreham, G. Khiba, K. & Fitzgerald, S.

29

(1991). �Language planning and attitudes towards the role and �

�status of languages, especially English, in Western Cape �

�Secondary schools.� Unpublished manuscript, Language Education

Centre, School of Education, University of Cape Town.

Wood, Tony M. (1987) �Perceptions of , and attitudes towards, �

�varieties of English in the Cape Peninsula, with particular �

�reference to the Coloured community� MA thesis Rhodes University.

�30

�Notes: �

�1�We would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Daryl McLean

during the planning and data-gathering stages of this project, to

Sarah Radloff for her statistical expertise and to our fieldworkers

for the high quality of their interviews.

�Appendix 1:�

�English:� During the last two years I've found it more and more

difficult to wake up late in the mornings. Even on my holidays,

when I have time to sleep late, I still wake up early. I don't know

what the reason is: I'm not working harder than I used to, I don't

think my health has improved or deteriorated...I just seem to need

less sleep than I used to.

�(Translated into Afrikaans and Xhosa)�

�

�Appendix 2:

ATTITUDES QUESTIONNAIRE: �INSTRUCTIONS�

Listen carefully to each of the following voices. There will be a

pause after each one. Please rate each speaker on a scale of 1 to 7

in terms of the following descriptions. Only make ratings where you

feel you can �confidently� make such judgements

Voice 1

reliable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unreliable

honest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 dishonest

friendly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unfriendly

intelligent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unintelligent

attractive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unattractive

competent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 incompetent

educated 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 uneducated

a leader 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 not a leader

confident 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unconfident

entertaining 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 boring

�(Repeated for the nine voices)�