The Effects of Perceived Status and Linguistic Diversity Upon Judgments of Speaker Attributes and Message Effectiveness

Abstract

It has been shown previously that high linguistic diversity positively affects listeners' judgments of speaker attributes and message effectiveness. Diversity refers to the degree of lexical and syntactic redundancy in a message. In the present study it was predicted that listeners' initial perceptions of a speaker's status would influence their judgments of high- and low-diversity messages. Ss were 46 male and female undergraduates at The University of Iowa. Three competing predictions were offered, and the results supported a status-attribution explanation. A high-status speaker was rated especially positively when he delivered a high-diversity message and especially negatively when he delivered a low-diversity message. High- and low-diversity messages did not differ in their evaluative consequences for a low-status speaker; in this case both message types produced ratings that fell between the relatively positive or negative ratings given to the high-status speaker.