Abstract
Once an asset owned exclusively by native English speakers (NESs) in inner circle, the native English speaking norms, specifically the standard varieties of British and American English, have been taken for granted as models for non-native English speakers (NNESs) in outer and expanding circles to imitate and approximate to. But this paradigm is under severe attack given the fact that people who use English as a lingua franca (ELF) have far outnumbered NESs. This paper aims to show how Chinese tertiary-level second language (L2) learners perceive different English accents and how their perceptions were related to their identities within the framework of ELF. By means of an online questionnaire survey, data from 574 English major students were retrieved and analysed with the assistance of SPSS 20.0 and Nvivo 11.0. The current study focuses on ambivalence in respondents’ attitudes toward different English accents. On the one hand, there was an obvious bias towards NES norms and accents and a strong bias against Chinese-accented English and other NNES accents; on the other hand, there was an emergence of linguistic rights and learner identity experienced by some respondents, which demonstrated itself in highlighting pragmaticity in communication, endorsing L1-accented Chinese identity, and questioning benchmark roles accorded to NES accent standards. The implication of the current study is to acknowledge an urgency of addressing the controversies between the linguistic reality and the prescriptive standards, and between the respondents’ hidden appeals for projecting their identity via L1-accented English and highly-acclaimed NES accent models.
Highlights
“Language attitudes permeate our lives” (Garrett, 2010) in a low-profile, lack-of-conscious but tenacious way
The current study reports an obvious bias towards native English speakers (NESs) or standard English accents, in particular, British and American English accents, which assumed the roles as the most familiar, the most preferred, and the most aspired and as the default point of reference
There exists a strong bias against Chinese-accented English and other non-native English speakers (NNESs) accents on the part of the respondents who felt reluctant to project their Chinese identity by means of Chinese-accented English which for them is as an unwelcoming marker of being failed language learners against the framework of SLA
Summary
“Language attitudes permeate our lives” (Garrett, 2010) in a low-profile, lack-of-conscious but tenacious way. ELF defined by Seidlhofer (2011) is “any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option” and for those speakers when using English they don’t think about the United States or England, they only think about the need to communicate This realisation is very significant, especially in the field of English language teaching (ELT) in that the NES norms, the prescriptive standards of British and American English varieties, once taken-for-granted models for NNESs in the outer and expanding circles to imitate and approximate to have for the first time been brought under attack. The prerequisite, admittedly, for any attempt at bringing changes to the ongoing language pedagogy and language policy making is to make sure that people’s attitudes are in favour of those changes
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