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Article published In:
English World-Wide
Vol. 45:2 (2024) ► pp.224–251

Immigrants’ attitudes towards varieties of American English

A preliminary investigation of Bilingual Korean Americans

| Kennesaw State University
ORCID logo | Hannam University

Native speakers of English commonly perceive some social variants of their language to be more prestigious than others. It is less clear, however, whether nonnative English speakers from immigrant communities come to internalize similar language stereotypes. The present study analysed, through a language attitude survey, a total of 40 Korean American college students’ reactions to tape-recorded samples of five socially stratified varieties of English commonly heard in the U.S. Results indicated that Korean American college students perceived a Standard American English (SAE) typical of broadcast English in the U.S. most favourably. Nonstandard varieties (regional and ethnic dialects), especially African American English, were judged as less favourable. SAE and its speaker was associated with positive qualities on rating scales, while nonstandard guises were rated less favourably on the same characteristics. This study provides a greater understanding of how different English varieties are perceived by an immigrant community in the U.S. and invites future studies of English language attitudes in other minority communities.

Keywords: Korean immigrants in the U.S., language attitudes, varieties of American English, verbal guise technique
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Language attitudes: A theoretical framework
    • 2.2Korean Americans and language ideologies
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Research materials
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Procedure
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Rating differences on five US English varieties
    • 4.2Guise ratings on semantic scales
      • 4.2.1Friendly – hostile
      • 4.2.2Self-confident – insecure
      • 4.2.3Humble – boastful
      • 4.2.4Urban – rural
      • 4.2.5Progressive – conservative
      • 4.2.6Good sense of humor – no sense of humor
      • 4.2.7Well-educated – poorly educated
    • 4.3Desirability of sounding like the speaker
    • 4.4Individual factors differentiation
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
    • 5.1Summary of the results
    • 5.2Discussion
    • 5.3Limitations of the study and recommendations for future study
    • 5.4Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 2 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.22022.lee
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