Accent Scaling and Language Attitudes: Reactions to Mexican American English Speech

Abstract

The relationship between degree of accent in the English of Mexican American speakers as assessed by naive raters, and the evaluative judgments of the raters toward accented speakers was explored. Tape recordings were prepared in a prior study of nine Mexican American readers having varying degrees of accent as judged by three linguists. An Accentedness Index score was obtained for each recorded speaker from the linguists' ratings of occurrences of 18 pronunciation variables. Estimations of degree of accentedness and evaluative reactions of status and solidarity were given for the nine readers by 43 Mexican American and 37 Anglo high school students. The accent estimation scores, Accentedness Index, and status ratings were all highly correlated within speakers. Solidarity ratings given by Mexican Americans were significantly related to the Accentedness Index. As the level of accentedness increased from speaker to speaker, the naive judges gave significantly lower status ratings. There were no group differences in the evaluative reactions given by Anglos and Mexican Americans. Results of the study are discussed in relation to Giles and Powesland's (1975) incremental theory of class-related standard.