Program of College Students’ Language Attitudes Research

Abstract

This study investigated the language attitudes of undergraduates, masters and doctoral students at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) regarding British English, American English, Chinese English and Mandarin through a questionnaire, interview and verbal guise technique. This study included 400 students, including 260 undergraduates, 120 master’s students, and 20 doctoral students. The questionnaire and interview refer to Chen’s language attitudes of Chinese in Singapore and its impact on language ability and language use and measures students’ language attitudes regarding British English, American English, Chinese English, and Mandarin using 10 scales of language characteristics. The verbal guise technique refers to the work by Gao. The material included four language variants, British English, American English, Chinese English, and Mandarin. This study employed quantitative statistics and analyzed the emotional identity, social status, and utility of the questionnaire results using Excel. The factor analysis used SPSS statistical software and combined 12 evaluation items for undergraduate, master’s degree and doctoral students. We concluded that the questionnaire, interview, and matching guise technique could research language variant attitudes from the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects, respectively. The results revealed that students with different degrees (undergraduate, master’s and doctoral) at SISU display similarities and differences in their views of different languages or language variants.