Implicit Language Attitudes Toward Historically White Accents in the South African Context

Abstract

This study explores the use of Implicit Association Test as an effective research tool to investigate language attitudes in South Africa. We aim to show how Standard South African English and Afrikaans-accented English are cognitively managed by young L1 South African indigenous language speakers. Results corroborate (a) participants’ statistically significant negative attitudes toward Afrikaans-accented English speakers, (b) the indexical nature of accents in triggering language attitudes, and (c) a main effect of modality when processing visual versus audio inputs.