Evaluative Reactions to Accented English

Abstract

A sample population of 48 Anglo-Australian and 49 Greek-Australian male and female high school students made personality evaluations of standard Australian English and Greek-Australian-accented English. Ratings were along two dimensions (status and solidarity), and each speaker was rated on three passages representing an achievement-oriented, public context (school), a situation of intimacy and friendliness (home), and a friendly interaction in a public context (bus stop). On the status dimension, Greek-accented speakers were evaluated more negatively than Australian-accented speakers by both Anglo-Australian and Greek-Australian students. Greek-Australian female subjects were more extreme in their ratings than were Anglo-Australians or Greek-Australian males. On the bus stop passage, however, Greek-Australian subjects did not distinguish on the basis of accent. Finally, female subjects of both ethnic groups favored female speakers in the home context, while male subjects favored Anglo-Australian female speakers in the two public settings.