Abstract
Language attitudes studies are integral to our understanding of language-society dynamics, specifically in regions where linguistic diversity can create issues connected to social structure and social cohesion. The field of language attitudes studies heavily impacts research in areas such as language planning and policy, education and workplace inequality, and cultural discrimination. Thus, it is important to have a work that presents an overview of the most important notions and concepts in this field, with a specific focus on topics such as defining language attitudes, the components of an attitude, and the different methods of measuring it. This paper aims at providing this overview in addition to assessing the current status of language attitudes studies in the Arab world and outlining the challenges and opportunities for researchers in this field. One of the significant characteristics of language attitudes research in this region is the lack of studies that focus on the inequality dimension. Many studies in this region have opted to investigate the Standard-Spoken dichotomy and the attitudes of speakers toward foreign languages such as French and English. Researching issues such as the attitudes toward other Arabic varieties and toward migrant guest workers’ use of pidgins remains limited in the Arab context. Factors such as cultural rivalry and national pride may represent some of the obstacles in the path of conducting broader studies in the field of language attitudes in this region.
Highlights
Language attitudes research has developed significantly since the early days of the matched guise technique of Lambert et al (1960) to the more recent work on accent-ism by Roessel et al (2020)
Language attitudes studies are integral to our understanding of language-society dynamics, in regions where linguistic diversity can create issues connected to social structure and social cohesion
This paper presents an overview of language attitudes studies with a focus on outlining the developments that have taken place in this field through the years, the different components of attitude, the methods used for measuring attitudes, and the real-life applications of language attitudes research that can have a strong influence on several domains, such as education, language planning, and linguistic inequality
Summary
Language attitudes research has developed significantly since the early days of the matched guise technique of Lambert et al (1960) to the more recent work on accent-ism by Roessel et al (2020). Through all these years, many notions have remained consistent in this field, and certain basic principles have continued their presence as part of its foundation, despite the large number of studies published in this field. The perception of rivalry and the great sense of pride in local spoken dialects might be among the significant obstacles in the way of conducting language attitudes research in this region. The goal is to produce a short reference on language attitudes research that can be used by students and researchers and that can provide concise information that covers many aspects of this field with a special focus on the Arab world and the Saudi context
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