Attitudes Toward Standard and Non-Standard Dialects in Linguistically Stigmatized and Linguistically Prestigious Regions in the United States and Germany

<p>This thesis investigates how speakers living in linguistically stigmatized and lin-guistically prestigious regions in the United States and Germany view standard and non-standard dialects in their respective countries. Hereby, it is examined in what ways the possession of the standard dialect relates to linguistic prestige and its absence to linguistic stigma.</p> <p>Comprehending the ways in which attitudes toward standard and non-standard dialects influence speakers' daily interactions with other members of society can ulti-mately yield a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in linguistic discrimina-tion, which can hopefully help to reduce this last-standing and hidden means to exclude certain members of society only because of their language behavior. </p> <p>While the majority of participants believe that a standard variety exists in their re-spective country, most of them do not believe that they themselves speak the standard; rather, they believe that they speak a non-standard dialect. Speakers in the United States as well as in Germany have clear ideas about the regional and social position of the stan-dard although, in theory, they believe that the standard is not limited to certain geographi-cal regions or social positions. Remarkably, participants are not convinced that the stan-dard is fundamentally better and more valuable than non-standard dialects, although de-scriptive adjectives chosen by them suggest that participants do indeed view the standard dialect to be a positive notion, i.e., they do not completely dismiss any evaluative under-takings. </p> <p>Nationality, i.e., whether speakers are American or German, shapes their linguistic attitudes to a greater extent than regionality, i.e., whether they come from a linguistically stigmatized or linguistically prestigious region. This result demonstrates that the unique history of participants' respective countries have a greater influence on their linguistic beliefs than their living in a linguistically stigmatized or prestigious region.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Campus Access Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Year

2011

Author dc:creator

• Huttinger, Dorothea Evelyn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Tracey L Weldon

• Linguistics
• Social and Behavioral Sciences
• attitudes
• dialect
• Germany
• linguistic stigma
• standard
• United States

Statement dc:rights

• © 2011, Dorothea Evelyn Huttinger

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/1528

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarcommons.sc.edu:etd-2529