The competence of the professional standard language speaker in flux? Support from the speech therapy context

Abstract

This paper pressure tests the claim that professional speakers who use the standard language are perceived as more competent, by (1) unpacking ‘competence’; (2) disentangling the discursive complexity of ‘professional speech context’; (3) accounting for respondents' language socialization background. In our experiment, Belgian Dutch speech therapy students (N = 77) and a control group (N = 54) evaluate a speech therapist who does (not) use standard language in relational and transactional professional discourse. Results reveal (1) a more conservative versus a more dynamic conception of ‘competence’; (2) penalization of standard language use in informal speech; (3) slightly higher sociolinguistic sensitivity for speech therapy respondents. The perceived tolerance towards non-standard speech in high standard expectancy contexts begs a reconsideration of language ideology in professional communication.