Folk perceptions of language diversity often differ from the criteria laid out by linguists and have particular implications for applied/sociolinguists since the collective identification of language diversity largely determines the ways in which individuals regard the categorisation of their own (and others) linguistic uses as belonging to a specific social and/or regional variety. Folk perceptions can thus help define speech communities as well as explain sociolinguistic other phenomena. This paper provides a critical analysis of the existing folk linguistic research into language variation in a number of different contexts: the UK, the USA, France and Japan. It is hoped that the information gained will help build up a more detailed sociolinguistic picture of the complex and often contradictory nature of lay individuals’ attitudes towards linguistic variation. In the final sections of the paper the authors argue for a greater deal of recognition within modern linguistics of the value of examining folk perceptions of language diversity.
2022. L1 Speakers’ Attitudes toward L2 Speakers’ Negation Use in French. The Canadian Modern Language Review 78:2 ► pp. 106 ff.
McKenzie, Robert M.
2015. The sociolinguistics of variety identification and categorisation: free classification of varieties of spoken English amongst non-linguist listeners. Language Awareness 24:2 ► pp. 150 ff.
McKenzie, Robert M.
2015. UK university students’ folk perceptions of spoken variation in English: the role of explicit and implicit attitudes. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2015:236
McKenzie, Robert M. & Alexander Gilmore
2017. “The people who are out of ‘right’ English”: Japanese university students' social evaluations of English language diversity and the internationalisation of Japanese higher education. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 27:1 ► pp. 152 ff.
McKenzie, Robert M., Patchanok Kitikanan & Phaisit Boriboon
2016. The competence and warmth of Thai students’ attitudes towards varieties of English: the effect of gender and perceptions of L1 diversity. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 37:6 ► pp. 536 ff.
Rieder, Maria
2018. Language Ideology and Traveller Identity. In Irish Traveller Language, ► pp. 209 ff.
Rieder, Maria
2018. Conclusion. In Irish Traveller Language, ► pp. 247 ff.
Verschueren, Jef
2021. Reflexivity and Meta-awareness. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 117 ff.
Ó Murchadha, Noel & Colin J. Flynn
2022. Teachers as new speakers of a minority language: Identity, speakerness, and ideologies on variation in Irish. International Journal of Bilingualism 26:5 ► pp. 584 ff.
[no author supplied]
2021. Fundamentals of Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 13 ff.
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