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Language Problems and Language Planning
Vol. 44:2 (2020) ► pp.170–199

Sources of variation in attitudes toward minority, majority and foreign language

A minority L1 perspective

ORCID logo | University of Novi Sad
| University of Novi Sad

Vojvodina, an autonomous province in northern Serbia, is a historically multilingual and multicultural area where multilingual education forms a cornerstone of linguistic, educational and social policy and practice: in addition to the majority language, five minority languages are also in official use and speakers of these languages may receive education in their L1. However, such a situation does not warrant positive attitudes toward the majority language. In fact, attitudes toward the majority population have been shown to be less positive among minority group members who receive their education in their L1 (Veres 2013). In addition to this, the effect of environment (compact vs. diffuse) has been shown to interact with attitudes. The paper examines the language attitudes of 423 Hungarian L1 grammar school pupils towards (1) their (minority) mother tongue (Hungarian), (2) Serbian as the majority language and (3) English as a foreign language, based on their value judgements and taking into account numerous variables which might prove to interact with their attitudes. The results of the research are expected to add to the study of language attitudes in a multilingual context, to help us understand better language situations in areas where bilingualism is promoted and to aid the implementation of coherent language policies.

Keywords: language attitudes, multilingualism, minority language, majority language, foreign language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language attitudes and language learning
  • 3.Language teaching in Vojvodina
  • 4.Research methodology
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Instrument
    • 4.3Research design
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Value judgements of Hungarian, Serbian and English
    • 5.2Effects of the investigated variables on value judgements
  • 6.Discussion and implications
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 September 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.19023.hal
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