LANGUAGE ATTITUDE STUDIES A Brief Survey of Methodological Approaches Rebecca Agheyisi and Joshua A. Fishman Stanford University Yeshiva University Introduction What are attitudes? Language attitude studies Commitment measures The matched guise technique: social stereotyped impressions Questionnaires Other data-gathering methods Validity Summary G. The study of attitudes has long been a central concern of the behavioral sciences, and a large portion of sociological and social psychological litere- ture is devoted to theoretical and methodological formulations about attitudes. Though attitude studies have not yet attained such prominence in the relatively young field of sociolinguistics, the relevance of attitude studies to such socio- linguistic topics as language choice in multilingual societies, differential allocation of codes, dialect differences nd mutual intelligibility — to name a few — is obvious. In this paper a brief outline of the theoretical and method- ological trends in attitude studies to date will be presented, followed by a general review of methodology in studies involving language attitudes in cur- rent sociolinguistic literature. Finally, some suggestions will be advanced regarding data-gathering methodology for particular types of attitude studies. ‘The basic purpose of this review is to prompt scciolinguists to improve their studies of language attitudes by assisting them to become familiar with a hugh literature which most have thus far overlooked. 1. The concept 'attitude' has been variously defined and characterized by almost every theorist or researcher who has concerned himself with at- titude studies, The various definitions very often reflect the differing theo- retical or research interests of the particular studies from which they stem. Some useful sources which list and competently discuss these definitions are 137138 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 Allport (1935), Nelson (1939), Campbell (1947), and DeFleur and Westie (1963). We will consider briefly here a few of the major theoretical end methodological positions that obtain in this connection. A typical mentalist definition suggests that attitudes are a "mental and eural state of readiness' (Allport: 1935). This implies that they are not directly observable but have to be inferred from the subject's introspection. This definition has therefore posed several methodological problems, for example: 1, What constitute the right kind of data from which attitudes may be inferred? How does one measure in physical terms (via observations, inquiries, or quantifiable measures) something which has no overt substance? Several attempts have been made since Allport's definition to redefine atti- tudes in more measurable terms than his "readiness to respond’. Thus some have characterized it ae a mediating concept or a "hypothetical construct! (Doob: 1947; Chein: 1948; Green: 1954; etc.) which is directly related to the overt behavior or verbal responses to any given set of stimuli, The sub- jectivism for which this approach has often been criticized remains how- ever, even in the modified versions. The advantage of this approach, according to its supporters, lies in the fact that attitude, though inferred from responses, still remains an independent variable in the form of 2 latent psychological constant which is not tied to the specific external stimulus situations in which the responses are made. The extreme behaviorist definition locates attitude in actual overt behavior or responses (Bain:1928).! Such an approach therefore faces few or no problems at the level of analysis because attitudes have been defined entirely in terms of the observable data, Bain bluntly remarked that Ithe only way to determine attitudes ie by observation and statistical treatment of behavior in social situations! (ibid. p. 957). The main criticism that has been levelled against this approach relates to its theo- retical implications which make attitude a dependent variable. Accord- ing to a strong critic of this approach, ‘attitude has no independence of the specific stimulus situations in which the responses are observed" and s0 lit cannot be used to explain other behaviors by the same organism! (Alexander Jr. :1967). For further elaboration of attitude definitions see McGuire (1968) who identifies five main approaches ranging from what he calls the extreme *positivistic' to the extreme 'mediationist', However, in spite of the differences represented by the two opposing models, research practices per se have been found to show little or no difference between what is actually measured by the two approaches, since they invariably base their inferences on the "consistency! of the responses, or what Green called the 'response convariation'. Another important aspect of attitude definition is whether attitudes are considered to have @ unitary or multiple structure. This is one matter on which there has been the greatest distance betwoon montalict and behaviorictLanguage Attitude Studies 139 viewpoints. Most of those who define attitude as a latent psychological variable also often tend to view it as having a multiple componential structure ( Rosenberg:1960; Rokeach: 1968; Lambert and Lambert: 1964), while those who typically identify it with responses per se tend also to view it as a unitary component (Osgood et al. :1957). The multiple com- ponent definition generally posits the following types of components: 1, cognitive or knowledge 2, aifective or evaluative 3. conative or action Rokeach (1968), however, ascribed an even more complex structure to attitudes. According to hia definition, an attitude is composed primarily of a system of beliefs; each belief is in turn composed of cognitive, af- fective and behavioral components. Fishbein, on the other hand, first draws a distinction between attitude and belief, stating that the former comprises only an affective component, while the latter contains both cognitive and conative components, His major criticism of the multi- component conception of attitude is that it is impossible to determine for each individual the actual interrelations and organization of the attitude components with respect to any one attitude object. As a result such multi- dimensional concepts are not only very troublesome to handle in theory, but they also ‘create almost unmanageable problems when theory is trans- lated into research' (Fishbein; 1966, p. 108), As a matter of fact, herdly any of the theorists who describe attitudes as ‘organized! has taken the trouble to explain or measure in what sense this organization exists. There is much evidence in current literature to justify the following remark by Fishbei ".,. people who construct ‘attitude scales! rarely main- tain that their instruments are measuring these com- ponents; instead they usually contend thet their scales indicate people's evaluation (pro-con) of objects or concepts. Thus, although attitudes are often said to in- clude all three components, it is usually only the eval- uative or 'the affective component! that is measured and treated by researchers as the essence of attitudes." (ibid, p. 108) Figure I is a graphic representation of these different views about the struc- ture of attitudes. ‘There are some aspects of attitude definition in which there appears to be some consensus; practically everybody agrees that attitudes are learned from previous experience, and that they are net momentary but relatively tenduring'. Many theorists aleo agree that attitudes bear some posit relation to action or behavior, either as being ‘predisposition to behavior! or as being a special aspect of behavior itself. There is, however, the suggestion that 'mot all components of an attitude imply behavior! (Ehrlich: 1969).140 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 Figure 1 ATTITUDE STRUCTURE: Four Views yLTICOMPONENT (a) AETITUDE (a) ATTITUDE Cognitive Affective Conative Affective Component (Knowledge) ( Evaluation) (Action) Belfefy els Beliefy Attitude Belief Cognitive Affective Behavioral Affective Cognitive Action e.g. Rokeach (1968) e.g. Fishbein (1966) Rokeach (1968) rejects this suggestion on grounds that 'a predisposition that docs not lead to some response cannot be detected" (p. 453). He main- tains that all attitudes are ‘agendas to action', along with other behavior determinants such as wants! and ‘situational conditions', ‘This argument is particularly relevant to the notorious question of the low level of cor- relation between attitudes and actual behavior. This question is discussed below in relation to the general question of validity. Other variable pro- perties of attitudes suggested by more recent theoretical formulations and operational definitions are discussed in Scott (1968) and McGuire (1968)Language Attitude Studies 141 We have undertaken this rather lengthy introductory discussion mainly to provide a broader theoretical perspective and framework for the method- ological interests of this paper. As will be seen, most studies relating to language attitudes hardly touch on theoretical issues regarding the nature of the objects or concepts to which they pertain, but, rather, attempt to deal directly with questions of description end analysis. 2. The studies and reports which pertain to language attitudes in cur- rent sociolinguistic literature fall inte three major categories: 1. those dealing with language-oriented or language-directed attitudes; 2. those dealing with community-wide stereotyped impressions toward particular languages or language varieties (and, in some cases, their speakers, functions, etc. 3. those concerned with the implementation of different types of language attitudes. Studies in the first category report primarily on evaluations or ratings of language or language varieties as 'rich' or 'poor', ‘balanced! or 're- duced', beautiful’ or 'ugly', ‘smooth and sweet sounding! or 'harsh', etc. Substantively, these studies fall into two topical subdivisions: (i) Classical/Standard/Official versus Modern/Non-standard/Vernacular varieties, respectively; (ii) Creoles, Pidgins, and Trade languages. Studies in the second major category are generally concerned with the social significance of languages or language varieties: attitudes towards speakers of situationally peculiar or appropriate language varieties; attitudes towards speakers of different languages in multilingual settings; etc. ‘The third category comprises studies dealing with all kinds of language behavior, or behavior toward language, resulting, at least in part, from specific attitudes or beliefs. Major topics in this category include: lan- guage choice and usage, language reinforcement and planning, language learning, expressed views about inter-dialect mutual intelligibility, etc Though each of the three major categories of studies outlined above has a different emphasis, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, because some studies reporting on attitudes towards particular languages very often indicate or imply the extension of these attitudes towards their speakers as well (Samarin; 1966; Gumperz; 1964). On the other hand, discussions of language choice and usage, especially in multilingual set- tings, are related to the social significance of the different languages and of their representative speakers ‘The primary interest in thie review is in the methodological prefer- ences of the various language attitude studies, and the three main sub- stantive areas distinguished above have important relevance to the types of data-gathering techniques employed by various studies, Table I below represents these techniques. In interpreting the table, it must be recognized that only studies which include explicit information on the type of data re- ported have been cited. Thus where one ox two studies only may be entered for any topic area, thie does not therefore imply that there are no other studies or reports relevant to that topic area in the literature.142 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 TABLE I: TYPES OF STUDIES AND Substantive Scaled & Weighted ‘Topica Questionnaire Interviews Measures - Classical /Stand- Nader 1962 ard/Official Modern/Non- Cumpers 1964 standard/Ver- nacular Creoles, Pidgins, and Trade Lan- guages Samarin 1966 Samarin 1966 Social Signifi cance of Lan- guage Varieties Lambert et al 1960 Herman 1961 Anisfeld et al 1962 JAnisfeld and Lambert 1964 Lambert et al 1965 Heise 1966 Lambert et al 1966 Fishman 1968 Kimple 1968 Webster & Kramer 1968; Tucker 1969 Tucker & Lambert 1969 Lambert et al 1960 Anisfeld et al 1962 Herman 1961 Nader 1962 Anisfeld & Lambert 1964 cumperz 1964 [Lambert 1964 Labow 1966 Lambert ot al 1965 Lambert et al 1966 Fishman 1968 Silverman 1969 Tucker 1969 Tucker & Lambert 1969 Dialect Dif- ferences & Mutual Intel- ligibility Haugen 1966 Silverman 1969 . Language Choice and Usage Barker 1947 Herman 196] Rubin 1963 Fishman 1968 Greenfield & Fishman 1968 Fertig & Fishman 1968 Fishman 1968 Second Lan- guage Learning Lambert & Gardner 1959;Lambert et al 1963 Lambert & Gardner 1959 Lambert et al 1963 Ervin-Tripp 1967 Ervin-Tripp 1967 . Language Main- tenance & Lan- guage Planning Fishman et al 1966 fess & Fishman 1968 ishman 1965 Fishman 1968 johnston 1967Language Attitude Studies 143, DATA GATHERING TECHNIQUES Auto- biography Other Ferguson McDavid Ir. 1959 1948 (field Gumperz records) 1964 —= Spitzer 1966 (Documents ) Lambert et al 1960 Anisfeld et al 1962 Anisfeld & Lambert 1964 Lambert et al 1965 Lambert et al 1966 Webster & Kramer 1968 Silverman 1969 Tucker 1969 Tucker & Lambert 1969 Herman 1961 feunt 1966 Kimple 1968 (Mirror Image] Herman 1961 (Survey material) Wolf! 1959 ("Testing") Herman 1961 iHtunt 1966 Barker 1947 Fishman et al 1966 (Archival material, docu- Iments, reports)Lag Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 As Table Tone reveals, the highest number of studies relevant to language attitudes are within the topic areas of the social significance of language varieties, and language choice and usage. Also, studies with- in these substantive areas have employed almost all the different types of data-gathering techniques. Generally, however, the questionnaire is the most popular instrument for eliciting data, The second, and fourth sub- stantive areas provide the major gaps in the systematic study of language attitudes. The least used instrument for data-gathoring is the Case Study — used for a single study only. This is only to be expected, considering the practical imitations attendant upon its use for eliciting attitude data. Many studies have made use of scaled and weighted measures of various kinds; among these is Fishman's (1968) study in which he used a special instrument célled a Commitment Measure. This is a relatively new kind of instrument whose usefulness for data-gathering may not have been brought to popular attention. This instrament, as used in Fishman! s (1968) study, will therefore be discussed in some detail below. Another instrument which appears to be preferencially employed for studies dealing with social stereotyped impressions, is the Matched Guise technique, which was developed, and has been widely used, by Lambert and his colleagues at McGill University. This technique will also be discussed briefly. Since the questionnaire has been shown to be a popular data-gather- ing instrument, some space will be devoted to discussing the special use- fulness of different types of questionnaires vis-a-vis particular types of attitude studies. Finally, some remarks will be made regarding other research methods that merit improved use in connection with the study of language attitudes. 3. Commitment measures, as the name suggests, are designed to measure the 'action' or 'conative! component of attitude. They measure the respondents’ willingness or commitment to perform a particular type of behavior, without actually performing it. The items ere generally con- otructed along a Guttman-type scale, ? cach on the dimension; ‘Would you agree to...' This measure can be followed up with respect to the performance of particular tasks related in kind to the object of the com- mitment items; and this follow-ap represents the overt behavior against which the scores of the commitment measure may be validated. In his study entitled Bilingual Attitudes and Behavior, Fishman's specific interest was 'to determine whether commitment items show any greater relationship to pertinent language behavior criteria than do more traditional dispositional or role playing language use and language attitude items' (p, 188), There were 375 subjects in the sample, 3 and 80% of these were mailed a 64-item questionnaire and a 10-item commitment measure, while the remaining 20% received only the questionnaire. 50% of those who got the two instruments had the commitment measure items on top of the questionnaire items, while the remaining 50% had the com mitment measure at the bottom of their questionnaire.Language Attitude Studies 145 ‘The content of the questionnaire items included, in addition to back- ground information ouch ac age, sex, ete., ‘questions concerning the desirability of social contacts with non-Puerto Ricans, attitudes toward being Puerto Rican, attitudes toward being American, observance of everyday Puerto Rican behaviors, range of interests, and use of Spanish and English' (p. 188). The Commitment measure, on the other hand, was concentrated on tapping subjects! willingness to maintain and strengthen Spanish in themselves and the community, The last item of the com- mitment measure required respondents to write their name, address, and telephone number on space provided, if they had answered ' Yes! to any of the prior nine commitment questions, The follow-up to this questionnaire was an invitation to those who signed the commitment measure 'to attend an evening of Puerto Rican songs, dances, and recitations! (p. 190) ‘The respondents fell into six different groups depending on whether they received or did not receive the commitment scale; signed or did not sign it; replied or did not reply to the invitation; if replied, whether answer was 'Yes' or 'No!; and finally, if 'Yes', whether attended or did not attend the program. ‘The mean commitment scores of these different groups were found to differ significantly, revealing a linear relationship between commitment scores and the extent to which the group approached participation in the program. On the traditional attitude items in the 64-item questionnaire, however, no significant difference was found between the groups. Answer- ing the commitment items before or after the questionnaire items also caused the commitment scores to vary significantly. ‘This study reveals two important facts about commitment measures as data-gathering techniques: first, they are more useful than traditional attitude questionnaires for measures which are designed to be validated against overt behavior, because they directly tap respondents! behavior tendency rather than their cognitive or evaluative responses. Secondly, the fact that commitment item scores varied significantly with respect to when they were answered relative to the questionnaire items suggests that subjects! responses may be influenced to some extent by the way they perceive, or define, the research or measuring situation. This second point is also confirmed by Fendrich (1967), when he administered com- mitment scales and questionnaire items to different groups of subjects in varying environmental situations. Fendrich's conclusion was: Commit ment is a useful predictor of overt behavior if the research setting is not contaminated with previous acts unrelated to overt behavior with which the respondent is forced to be consistent" (p. 354). Commitment items could well be particularly useful for studies dealing with the implementa- tion of attitudes related to different forms of language planning and main- tenance, but should be scattered throughout other kinds of items rather than administered as a block before or after these other items. 4. The matched guise technique was first developed by Lambert and his colleagues at McGill University, and since 1960, there have been at146 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 4 evaluation reactions to particular languages (or language varieties) and their representative speakers. The different studies have involved various languages (French, English, Hebrew, Arabic, Tagalog), dialects (Canadian and Continental French; different American English dialects; Ashkenazic and Yemenite Hebrew; etc.) and speech varieties (accented and unaccented English), as well as racial (e.g. Negro vs. White) and religious populations (Canadian Jewish, Protestant, and Roman Catholic) within some of the above language groups. This technique requires that selected groups of judges evaluate the personality traits of speakers whose tape-recorded voices are played to them, The recorded voices are generally those of individuals, who, be- cause of their natiye-like speaking ability in the two languages or varieties represented, have cach recorded translated versions of the same text, least seven studies in which the technique has been used to measure group This fact is, of course, concealed from the judges who believe that each language or variety is spoken by a different speaker, In addition to this evaluation of traits of the speakers, other measures of variables such as prejudice, personal attitudes, group preference, and degree of bilingualism are also taken, and scores from these are later examined for degree of correlation with the valuation measures derived by use of the matched guises. ‘The major principle underlying this technique is that if there is adequate control of every other variable in the experimental situation — such as_ the voice quality of speaker, content of text, and most especially, personality of speaker — other than the actual language variety, then whatever evalua- tions are made of the speaker must be prompted mainly by the judge's general reaction to the speakers of that particuler language, rather than by his re- action to the specific speaker in the experimental situation. And so, if there is any significant uniformity in the evaluation reactions of any group of judges, such reactions are said to represent the stereotyped impressions of that group toward the speakers of the particular language or variety. Logically, this reasoning is quite sound, except that it presupposes that each population or sub-population is characterized or identifiable by 9 single language variety. However, when we examine bilingual speech communities and networks, particularly within a diglossia setting, a lot of switching is found to go on — in the form of inter-dialect switching, or switching from standard to non-standard varieties, or even from one language to another — depending on factors such as domain, topic, location, role, interaction type, or network type. So questions of speech repertiore and the functional alloca~ tion of codes become very important and must be reckoned with rather than ruled out, as does the matched guise technique. In the experimental matched guise setting, when the judges make their evaluations of the speakers, some of the things they may be reacting to could well be the congruity, or lack of it, between the topic, speaker, and the particular language variety. This congruity or incongruity deserves to be studied rather than obscured. Kimple!s (1968) study is of special interest in this regard. Following up on an earlier study by Cooper, Fowles end Givner (1968) in which they measured 'the bilingual's awareness of the social meaning of differencesLanguage Attitude Studies 147 in the use of language varieties in conversation’, he used a special adapta- tion of the matched guise technique (which he called the 'Mirror image! inguals interpret the use of different languages ‘Two different conversations were used. each involving a special set of role-relations, setting or location, and topic. Bilingual interlocutors made recordings of each of the conversations in each of their languages, and from these two sets of recordings, four different versions of each of the original conversations were made, preserving the original role-relations, setting and topic, but making the following changes in language: (i) All characters spoke in language A for the entire length of the conversations; (i) Some of the characters spoke in language A in particular role~ relations, and in language B in others; (ii) All the characters spoke in language B for the entire length of the conversations; (iv) A 'mirror image of (ii)! — i.e., the role-relations that were originally associated with language A were now used in language B, while those originally associated with language B were now used in language A. Four sets of judges, each set listening to only one version of each conversa- tion, were then asked to indicate on questionnaires the following: ‘1, The role relationships of the speakers (c.g. mother-son as opposed to husband-wife} 2. The setting of the conversations (where the conversations took place) 3, Manifest content (the surface events of the story) 4. Social and latent content (e.g. the occupational status of the speakers) 5. The appropriateness of language usage.’ (p. 600) Generally, the results of this study suggest most firmly that speakers do have certain systematic notions about language appropriateness with respect to factors such as topic, role-relation, and setting, and that these factors operate in varying degrees to arouse stereotyped impressions about speakers. It is hoped that ideas from this technique will be incorporated into future studies of normative reactions to language varieties technique) to measure how bil AL The questionnaire, as a data-gathoring instrument, has attained a high level of sophistication and formal development mainly as a result of its extensive use by social scientists, In attitude studies, most survey ques- tionnaires mainly contain open question items, such as: 1, What do you think of the use of the vernacular for school instruc- tion? 2. How would you react if it was suggested that more text books be written in the vernacular? The whole idea of this form of questioning is to encourage the subjects to freely express their individual views about the focal object (which in this case may be the vernacular or a standard official language), with no leads from the questions beyond those suggested by the dimensions of appraisal: ‘What do you think... and 'How would you react...'. In the course of148 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 answering such open questions subjects may reveal other attitudes which the rescarcher may not have anticipated. However, open questions de have some disadvantages. They are less successful in questionnaires than in interviews because a respondent can talk at length in an interview without having to worry about recording his views in writing (the interviewer does the worrying), but in a questionnaire, the effort needed to write down the answers may make the respondent refrain from answering questions as fully as he otherwise would, Another disadvantage of open-question items in questionnaires is that respondents may fail to focus on the actual dimen- sion of a question; even though they provide responses, such answers may be useless to the researcher. Finally open ended questions pose serious scoring problems to the researcher. Due to these disadvantages, most researchers relegate the use of open-question items to initial survey or pilot studies, The preferred alternative for collecting final data are closed- question items A closed question item generally has three main dimensions: the focal object, the dimension of appraisal, and a set of rating terms from which the respondents are required to choose. The rating terms differ in degree of complexity: some items require only a 'yes/no' response, others a choice from e 5-point (c.g. Likert scale) or 7 -point (Osgood et al) scale. Some models of closed-question items require respondents to rank the items according to how they represent his own viewpoint (Coombs's un- folding technique), or to complete sentences. Because of their multiple structure, closed-question items must be carefully constructed, usually after special pilot studies using open-question items. Osgood et al (1957) introduced a special model, the Semantic Differ- ential inetrument, in which neither opinion statements nor questions are used, but rather the actual names, or terms of reference, for the focal object or concept. Their argument for not using statements or questions seems to be that a special generality is captured in the measures that focus directly on the unqualified objects, because it is clear that the focal object or concept stimulated the scored response, rather then any other object or concept introduced through the question or statement, Thus measures so obtained can be cross-culturally compared more meaningfully. Fertig and Fishman (1968) and Ervin-Tripp (1967) are examples of language studies which have used the semantic differential instrument for data-gathering. For further discussion of this and other imovations introduced to attitude meas- urement through this model, see Osgood et al (1957) and Osgood (1965) The special advantage of the closed-question item is that it eliminates the problem of respondents’ failing to focus on the expected dimension, since all they have to do is choose from a set of provided categories. This also means that responses are easier to score than those to open-question items, Another advantage is that instruments can more easily be constructed that systematically cover more than one dimension. However, in this very acpect lice the greatest disadvantage of the closed-question: if it is relatively simple (e.g. requiring only a "yes/no! answer) respondents may be easilyLanguage Attitude Studies 149 bored and tend to answer automatically, i.e., with little interest or serious- ness; if, however, it is relatively complex, respondents may find it tedious and overly demanding. Apart from these problems, questionnaires with closed-question items appear to be among the best instruments for measuring multicomponential concepts. ‘A special adaptation of the questionnaire is that in which an additional dimension of role is included in the items. An example often cited is the study by Emory Bogardue (1925) in which he instructed respondents to imagine themselves relating to foreigners in different social contexts rang~ ing from accepting them as close relatives by marriage to barring them as visitors to their country. The addition of this extra role-playing dimension was expected to make the responses more realistic. However, this trad- itional role-playing type of questionnaire has been repeatedly criticized for the fact that the roles introduced are often too remote to reveal respondents’ actual behavior tendencies, or that the responses derived therefrom re- present only symbolic behavior (LaPiere 1934) rather than predicting actual behavior, However, recent studies have tried to improve on earlier at- tempts by incorporating into questionnaire items more of the important factors that influence everyday behavior. For example, Ervin-Tripp (1964) studied the effect of factors such as topic and role on language use. Green- field and Fishman (1968) used two situationally-based eclf-report instru- ments to measure the normative views in a bilingual Puerto Rican com- munity in New York regarding the differential allocation of languages. This study is particularly important because it went beyond other similar studies (such as that of Ervin-Tripp cited above): it not only established that factors such as topic, place and person affect language normative views, but it aleo tried to find out the extent to which these factore are inter-related, as well as their relative importance In summary, the questionnaire, as a data-gathering instrument, does have obvious limitations vis-a-vis certain kinds of data. It is generally considered adequate for callecting data about attitudinal criteria per se (e.g. political or religious attitudes) but most types of questionnaires are found inadequate for data relating to anticipatory behavior: LaPiere (1934) clearly demonstrated some of these inadequacies &. Interviewing is perhaps the oldest method of data-gathering, yet it has never quite attained the same level of development as the questionnaire Its special methodological disadvantages lie in processing and recording the bulky and relatively diffuse data it yields, These can be serious pro- blems when the sample is large. However, the research interview has several potential advantages which more than compensate for its disadven- tages. The personal contact involved enables the interviewer to focus the attention of the respondent on the desired dimension, thereby providing a better chance for an honest and serious response. Also, the researcher is better able to assess and influence the mood of the respondent, and thus reduce the chance of boring or irritating him (although running the risk of biasing or influencing him). In discussing the relative value of "behavioroid150 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 measures! (commitment measures), regular questionnaires, and inter- views, Aronson and Carlsmith (1968) remarked: "On our continuum, somewhere inbetween a behavioroid measure and an attitude questionnaire is the interview" (p. 55). Cannell and Kahn (1968) provide an extremely useful and comprehensive treatment of the research interview: its nature, methods of conducting, recording, and coding it, questions of reliability and validity, and other important aspects of its use. The quantitative analysis of language attitude data derived from interviews is demonstrated by Hoffman (1968) ‘The observational method by itself may not be the best for collecting data of an essentially introspective nature such as attitudinal data, but when combined with more direct methods such as interviews and ques- tionnaires, it can be very useful (Gumperz 1964). It is obvious that behavior in actual social situations is more complex, more variable, and less organized than ina specially created situation, such as an experi- mental laboratory, but it seems that if greater attempts are made to rid data collected by the traditional ethnographic methodology of their excessive sub- Jectivity and privacy, and to present them in more formal and 'public' forms, such data can be subjected to the seme rigorous standards of scoring, counting and rating as data collected through more formal methods. At present, studies based on data collected through informal observation can neither be fully assessed nor compared with other similar studies (Ferguson 1959) 7. The interpretation of results is naturally one of the most Important stages in any research. The major question at thie stage concerns validity, or the justification or proof for the claim or assertion which the study makes about the material world. Validation of attitude studies is particularly pro- blematic because of the very nature of attitudes as properties of the psycho- logical or mental process. It is therefore difficult to find suitable criteria against which to validate attitude studies, Studies using commitment mea- sures, and therefore tapping the action component of attitudes, have been found to be useful predictors of overt behavior (Fishman 1968: Fendrich 1967), and so such studies are easily tested for validity by comparing results with actual behavior in circumstances similar to the research situation. But studies which focus on either the cognitive or affective components of attitudes, or which define attitude as consisting of only an affective dimension, need ae criteria behavior of a rather subjective nature. In actual research practice, the use of special operational de- finitions (which in many cases turn out to be highly simplified versions of conceptual ones) seems to overlook or underrate the problem of validity. This practice has no doubt increased and perpetuated the familiar problem of the low degree of consistency between attitude measures and overt behavior, a problem which has long been studied and discussed in the lit erature (LaPiere 1934; DeFleur and Westie 1958; 1963: Linn 1965; Tittle and Hill 1967, etc.), Howard J. Ehrlich (1969) ina recent article expres- sed dissatisfaction with the way the question has been approached: "TheLanguage Attitude Studies 151 correct representation of the problem should take the form: Under what conditions, and to what degree, are attitudes of a given type related to behaviors of a given type?" He also offered methodological and concept- ual arguments to prove this point, discussing ‘intervening variables between attitudes and behavior. ‘This observation also pertains to various kinds of language attitude studies, especially those concerned with language maintenance and lan- guage shift among immigrant groups. For example, Hesbacher and Fish- man, in their study of language loyalty among Jewish and Polish immigrants in the United States (1965), showed that factors such as degree of de- ethnization, ideological orientation, relative age, etc., are important intervening variables between the affective function of the respective lan- guages (Yiddish and Polish) and their actual use by the immigrants, The general implication of thie is that etudies designed to measure cognitive or affective views alone are insufficient to be used for predicting behavior: additional measures of behavior tendency, taking into account relevant sociological, ideological, and psychological factors are also necessary. 8 It is possible to identify two major trends — mentalist and behav- iorist — in the theoretical and methodological study of attitudes in the eocial sciences. The former treats attitude as a mediating concept while the latter operationally defines it as a probability concept, though in research practice per se both derive their attitude measures from response covariation. While there are varying views concerning the structure and components of attitudes, there is, however, a consensus that attitudes are learned, enduring, and positively related to overt behavior. Methodology in attitude studies includes direct and indirect measures of all kinds, but language attitude studies have tended to make more use of questionnaires than of other methods. The matched guise technique has been extensively used for studies relating to the social significance of lan- guages and language varieties, A special adaptation of this technique (*mir- ror image!) proves promising for measuring consensual evaluations of lan- guage switching at the situational level. Situationally based self-report instruments such as those used by Greenfield and Fishman (1968) also pro- mise to be very effective instruments for studies pertaining to normative views concerning the situational use of languages and language varieties. The commitment measure has been found to be particularly suited for collecting data on behavioral tendencies. Data obtained through interviewing may be difficult to process and score, but the research interview can be particularly effective for attitude assess- ment, especially when used to complement the observational method, Finally, data collected through the observational method can be formally processed like data obtained via more formalized instruments if attempts are made to record the data in more operetionalized and "public! form instead of only via the subjective approach most characteristic for such data thus far.152 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 WORKS CITED Alexander, C. 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Gardner, R.C. and W.E, Lambert 1959; Motivational Veriables in Second Language Acquisition, Canadian Journal of Psychology 13:4. 266-72 Green, B.F. 1954; Attitude Measurement in Lindzey, ed.: The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. I. Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 335-59. Greenfield, L. and J, A. Fishman 1968: Situational Measures of Language Use, in Relation to Person, Place and Tbpic among Puerto Rican Bi- Hinguale in Fishman et al 1968, pp. 430-58 Gumperz, J.J, 1964: Linguistic and Social Interaction in Two Communities, ‘AA 66, No. 6, Part 2, pp. 137-54.154 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12, No. 5 Guttman, L. 1950: The Problem of Attitude and Opinion Measurement in S.A. Stouffer et al 1950, pp, 46-59, Haugen, E. 1966: Semicommunication: The Language Gap in Scandinavia, Sociological Inquiry, pp. 280-97. Heise, D.R. 1966: Social Status, Attitudes, and Word Connotation, Sociological Inquiry, pp. 227-39. 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Tucker, G.R., Lambert, W. =. 1969: White and Negro Listeners" Reactions to Various American-English Dialects, Social Forces, in press. Webster, W.G. and E. Kramer 1968: Attitudes and Evaluational Reactions to Accented English Speech, Journal of Social Psychology 75. 231-40. Weick. Karl F. 1968: Systematic Observational Methods in Lindzey and Aronson, eds.: 1968, Vol. Il, pp. 357-451 Wolff, Hans 1959; Intelligibility and Inter-ethnic Attitudes, AL 1:3. 24-41, reprinted in Dell Hymes, ed., Language and Culture in Society. Harper and Row, 1964, pp. 440-45 NOTES 1, Bain defines attitude as ‘the relatively stable overt behavior of a person which affects his status' (p, 950). 2. The items of a typical Guttman scale are cumulative in that ‘persons who answer a given question favorably all have higher ranks on the scale than persons who answer the same question unfavorably'. Thus in answering the following three questions: 1. Are you over 30 years old? Yes No 2, Are you over 25 years old? yee No 3, Are you over 20 years old? Yes No persons who checked ‘Yes? to item 1 must also be expected to check "Yes! to items 2 and 3, while persons who checked ‘Yes! to item 3 but No! to item 2 would be expected to check 'Ne! to item 1, Conversely, nobody who checked 'No! to item 3 would be expected to check "Yes! to either item 1 or 2.Language Attitude Studies 157 3, The subjects used for the study were members of a Puerto Rican youth organization that conducts clubs at various public and Catholic high schools in the New York area'. 4. Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, and Fillenbaum, 1960; Anisfeld, Bogo, and Lambert, 1962: Anisfeld and Lambert, 1964; Lambert, Anisfeld, and Yeni-Komshian, 1965; Lambert, Frankel, and Tucker, 1966; Tucker and Lambert, 1969; and Tucker, 1969. 5, According to local rating, this was supposed to sound most natural.