Abstract
Language attitudes inform social stereotyping, which in turn affects linguistic judgments (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick 2007). Nonstandard varieties are particularly subject to negative stereotypes, being evaluated as “less friendly” and “hard to understand” (Giles & Watson 2013). In this study, we investigate attitudes towards Indian English, a variety of English spoken by one of the largest immigrant populations in the USA (approximately 2.4 million), to understand the roots of linguistic stereotyping towards this variety of English. We compared attitudes of American English speakers towards Indian English and British English. Our results show that while American English speakers do not explicitly indicate any communication problem with Indian English, they disfavor Indian English compared to British English. This disfavoring of Indian English aligns with Raciolinguistic theories, suggesting that post-colonialism, especially Whiteness, is a factor in language prestige and how different varieties are perceived.
Highlights
Indian English, an outer circle English variety, is spoken by over 125 million people (Government of India, 2011)
Participants were asked explicitly if they perceive any linguistic discrimination towards Indian English speakers, and our results show that when asked explicitly about linguistic stereotyping towards Indian English, approximately 91.2% of our participants agree with the statement that there are negative stereotypes towards Indian English speakers
Our results show that our participants were aware of linguistic discrimination towards Indian English
Summary
Indian English, an outer circle English variety, is spoken by over 125 million people (Government of India, 2011). Indian English is perceived negatively by many monolingual speakers of English (Lindemann 2005). This necessitates more research to identify the forces creating negative stereotyping towards Indian English. We will raise questions related to the implications of perceived negativity towards different varieties by referring to educational and workplace practices, and how Raciolinguistics can expand theories related to World Englishes. During this period, British traders built up factories and trade-posts in different parts of India. British traders built up factories and trade-posts in different parts of India These factories and trade-posts initiated language contact between English and many different Indian languages. By the end of the 1600s, there were English schools in India created by missionaries, leading to limited English bilingualism
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