LANGUAGE ATTITUDES

LANGUAGE ATTITUDESBy: Muhammad Arif al HakimLanguage is one human characteristic that sets it apart from other creatures. in addition, the language has a social function, both as a communications tool and as a means of identifying social groups. Sociolinguistics is the study of language with social dimensions. From the perspective of language attitudes sociolinguistics phenomena (language attitude) in a multilingual society is an interesting phenomenon to be studied, because it is through language attitudes can determine the survival of a language.MEASURING LANGUAGE ATTITUDEA language attitude can be positive or negative. In reality, some people may also hold a neutral attitude. To measures attitude toward a language and its speaker, there are two methods to be applied.

1. Direct Method

A direct method is a measuring language attitude by asking questions in an interview or by giving a questionnaire to fill in by some respondent. In this method an interviewer asks questions to which the responses will directly state the interviewees language attitude. The questions asked can be in an interrogative structure such as will you study English instead of Chinese if you have to go and live in an Asian country? Or open-ended questions like why do you choose to study English?

2. Indirect Method

An indirect method is a method to measure someones language attitude. This method is applied in the way that the participants are not aware that their attitudes are being measured. The most popular type is named the matched-guise. Researches that used this method did an experiment to get their informants judge speakers personalities based on recorded speech they hear.

Sample of the study case After listening to the records, both French-Canadian and English-Canadian students showed positive attitudes towards the English use, by agreeing to the English speakers leadership, self confidence, sociability, and likeability. Whereas English students only rated higher French use on sense of humor but rated English higher on other aspect such as intelligence, dependability, kindness, ambition, and character. Surprisingly, the French-students responses showed their positive attitude towards the English use, by considering the English speakers to be better, dependable, more ambitious, more intelligent, etc.

FACTORS INFLUENCING LANGUAGE ATTITUDES1. The Prestige and Power of The LanguageIn many countries around the world an enthusiasm to learning English is not uncommon. Some people assume that learning a foreign language (English for example) will correlate with declining the national loyalty of the learners.However scholars have learned that the enthusiasm on learning a foreign language is not always correlated with a negative attitude toward the national and cultural feeling of the learners.A research on Japanese children studying English for example, proved that although the learners showed great attraction towards the western culture as well as the language being studied, they kept holding a strong Japanese identify and a language loyalty.

2. Historical Background of NationsSome middle east people may not want to study English because they learn from their history that western people were colonialist. The view is possibly strengthened with some complicated contemporary disputes between the western and Arabic (Muslim) cultures.

3. The Social and Traditional FactorsIn the society where a diglossic situation is found the higher variety of the language is normally considered as a better form than the lower one.

4. The Language Internal SystemPeople often show positive attitude towards learning a language because the grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary are relatively easy. As the gender-based nominal system of the languages is difficult to learn when compared to English, students may choose to learn English, instead of French and German. A negative attitude might be also found towards learning Chinese with its complex tonal pronunciation and orthographic system.

ATTITUDES IN LANGUAGE LEARNINGLearners attitudes towards the language being learned have been researched many times by language teachers and psychologists. Most of the researchers agreed that favorable (positive) attitude towards the language will affect more positive result in the learning. In contrast, negative view to the language being learned will be more likely to cause negative result in the study.There are 2 types of language attitude: 1. Integrative and 2. Instrumental

1. Integrative Language AttitudesAn integrative language attitude is an attitude which is characterized with some desire and behaviors of the learners to integrate themselves with the language being learned. Learners with this attitude not only learn a language to have a proficiency in it, but also wish to know, imitate, or adapt themselves to the culture related to the (native) speakers of the language

2. Instrumental Language AttitudeAn instrumental attitude is identified when the learners study a language in order to fulfill only material needs, but has not the need of being part of the culture related to the language. Students who are less motivated in practicing the language outside the classroom are often less interested in understanding the culture of the native speakers of the language. ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE USESPeople may express their judgment towards use of particular language in a positive attitude or a negative one; a positive language attitude is followed with followed action, whereas a negative language attitude is followed with negatives one. One of the most traditional language attitudes is the reaction directed towards the use of taboo words and swearwords.A better social image associated with the use of language or a variety of it may also be influential. In Indonesia, adopting the Jakartans dialect in speaking before the public seems to be increasing. As most TV stars and movie idols (celebrities) speak the dialect on TV, the style is spread very fast as a norm. Words such as cewe(k) (girl; chick) and cowo(k) (boy), babe(daddy), are becoming more popular than their standard correspondences: gadis, anak laki(laki), bapak.

In general people who learn English formally are more likely to show positive attitude towards using the standard English. Negatives attitude on the other hand ere often demonstrated towards the use of the non-standard and ethnical varieties, such as African-American vernacular English (AAVE), Australian English, Chinglish (English used by Chinese native speakers), etc. However it is also reported that most students with AAVE background often show resistance

Negatives responses can also be expressed towards the use of foreign items (borrowings) in language. In Indonesia official rejection was once shown towards the overuse of words such as fast food, software, hand phone, laundry, which could be replace with the Indonesian masakan cepatsaji, perangkat lunak, telepon genggam, dan pinatu.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE USESAttitudes towards language users may be also related political or social sentiment. Some Indonesian people said to show negative attitude towards those who imitated (the second president) Soeharto's idiolect. Thus, people who copied Soehartos use of daripada, (in standard Indonesian this is used to equal than but used by the president to mean from or of in his speech) or his typical pronunciation of-kan with the schwa(in which words such as membangunkan (to develop), memberikan (to give) would sound /membaunkn/ and /membrikn/, which is different from / membaunkan/ and / membrikan/, as spoken by Indonesian in general) would be judged to be Soehartos people, which was negative label in that time.

The attitudes towards names can be actually seen in childrens everyday behaviors of calling names in the playground, in which some are called or given bad names that are hurting. This could be a reason why people decide to change their names when they are rocketing to be stars; the Hollywood actor Thomas Mapother changed into Tom Cruise, the Indian Amit Srivatav become Amitabh Bachan, in HongkongChan Kwong-Sung turned into Jacky Chan, in Indonesia Ainur Rokhimah turned into Inul Daratista, etc.

Code-CrossingCode-crossing is a term applied by scholars in studying peoples attitudes towards language uses. The term is used to describe the attitude towards uses of language or a variety of it by speaker who is supposed to not use it. Thus, a code-crosser is someone who is not regarded as a member of a group of a speech community but trying to speak in the code use among the members. When student learning to speak English is using English swearwords (god damn it, piss off, shit) during conversations with (or just a presence of) native speakers of English, he (she) can be perceived to be claiming memberships of the English speaking group.

THE COMMUNICATION ACCOMMODATION THEORY (CAT)The communication accommodation theory (CAT) is a theory that describes a positive or negative language attitude found between communicants in their communication. In theory is used to explain especially the attitude shown by individual speakers towards the listener(s) in a conversation.

There are two important sociolinguistic concepts in the theory, namely convergence and divergence. As convergence and divergence are individual's language attitudes found in a conversation, the concepts are the best classified as individual phenomena.

1. CONVERGENCE

Convergence refers to the positive attitude shown by a speaker towards the listener by adjusting the features of his(her) language (the pronunciation, accent, vocabulary, structure) so that he(she) is understood and accepted. A mother adjusting her voice during talking with a baby (or child), which is often named as baby talk or motherese, is a form of convergence. In such talking, a mother usually thinks that she needs to use shorter and simpler expressions, higher pitch, slower speed, and does repetition so that she says is understood straightforwardly.

2. DIVERGENCE

In CAT divergence is a concept reflecting a language attitude that takes an opposite direction from the convergence. It refers to separation shown by a speaker from the listener(s)s language.A separation from a group of people who speak the same language is more likely to be found when the separator holds an outsiders attitudes towards the group. The separation is demonstrated through the language and often takes place for some different social, political, or cultural backgrounds. Thus, in the class of learning standard English for example, when an Afro-American boy keeps using AAVE for his strong loyalty to his ethnics, in addition to some belief that his variety of a language reflects his ethnic and cultural identity, the boy is diverging.

Thus, in an interaction with people of different ethnics who speak the same language, the use of AAVE to the speakers is a maker of ethnic identity; it emphasizes an attitude of being in-group and excludes the interlocutors; places them as out-group.

Language attitudes (towards use of a language, a variety of it, towards language users, etc) are a social and linguistic phenomenon. An attitude shown by users of a language in one time may change in other time for several reasons; a negative attitude becoming more positive attitude, or a positive attitude turning to be a negative one. Sociolinguists learn that the change of the attitude is as normal as the change of language itself.

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