CAHPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study
Language 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. The view
de Saussure (1916) which states that language is one of the community
organizations, the same with other social institutions, such as marriage,
inheritance, and so has signaled the importance of attention to the social
dimension of language
In this paper, the arranger will mainly discuss about language
attitude and its roles in sociolinguistics. As we know that language and
attitude cannot be separate each other. It is because it has its own function
in the use. In sociolinguistics, attitude taken place as an aspect that human
should have to understand each other in communication.Some language-
attitudes studies are strictly limited to attitudes toward the language itself.
However, most often the concept of language attitudes includes attitudes
towards speakers of a particular language; if the definition is even further
broadened, it can allow all kinds of behavior concerning language to be
treated (e.g. attitudes toward language maintenance and planning efforts)
(Fasold 1984: 148).
Attitudes are crucial in language growth or decay, restoration or
destruction: the status and importance of a language in society and within
an individual derives largely from adopted or learnt attitudes. An attitude is
individual, but it has origins in collective behavior. Attitude is something an
individual has which defines or promotes certain behaviors. Although an
attitude is a hypothetical psychological construct, it touches the reality of
language life. Baker stresses the importance of attitudes in the discussion of
bilingualism. Attitudes are learned predispositions, not inherited, and are

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 likely to be relatively stable; they have a tendency to persist. However,
attitudes are affected by experience; thus, attitude change is an important
notion in bilingualism. Attitudes vary from favorability to unfavorability.
Attitudes are complex constructs; e.g. there may be both positive and
negative feelings attached to, e.g. a language situation (Baker 1988:112-
115).

B. Problem Formulation
1. What is Language Attitude?
2. How measuring Language Attitude?
3. What is Language Attitude in Sociolinguistic and Language
Learning?

C. Goal
1. To know what is language Attitude
2. To know how measuring Language Attitude
3. To know what is language attitude in sociolinguistic an language
learning

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 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Language and Attitude

There are some definitions about language attitude or attitude toward

language according to some researchers. But in this case, the writer
concludes that language attitude is feelings that people have about their own
language variety or the language variety of others.

Language is the primary means of human communication. It is a

powerful social force that does more than convey intended referential
information. It also indicates both personal and social characteristics of the
speaker. Depending on the particular listener, a speaker’s accent, speech
patterns, vocabulary, intonation etc. can serve as markers for evaluating that
speaker’s appearance, personality, social status and character, among other
things. Obiols defines attitude as a “mental disposition towards something”,
it acts as a bridge between opinion and behavior (Obiols 2002). Ryan define
language attitudes as “any affective, cognitive or behavioral index of
evaluative reactions toward different language varieties or speakers” (Ryan
et al. 1982:7)

The study of language attitudes is important for sociolinguistics

because it can, as Marina S. Obiols writes: ‘predict a given linguistic
behavior: the choice of a particular language in multilingual communities,
language loyalty, language prestige...” (Obiols 2002). Suzanne Romaine
says that the basis of attitude measurement is that there are underlying
dimensions along which individual attitudes can be ranged. However, she
also points out that “the translation of attitude from the subjective domain
into something objectively measurable is a common problem in any
research that involves social categorization and/or perceptual judgments”

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(Romaine 1980:213). Many experiments have tried to analyze the complex
relationship between people’s attitudes and their behavior (see Wicker 1969
for an overview), but the conclusions are far from unanimous.

According to Lambert (1967), attitudes consist of three components:

the cognitive, affective and conative components (Dittmar 1976: 181). The
cognitive component refers to an individual's belief structure, the affective
to emotional reactions and the conative component comprehends the
tendency to behave in a certain way towards the attitude (Gardner 1985: ).

The major dimensions along which views about languages can vary
are social status and group solidarity. The distinction of
standard/nonstandard reflects the relative social status or power of the
groups of speakers, and the forces held responsible for vitality of a language
can be contributed to the solidarity value of it. Another dimension, called
ingroup solidarity or language loyalty, reflects the social pressures to
maintain languages/language varieties, even one without social prestige
(Edwards 1982:20 .)

Fishman and Agheyisi (1970) have suggested that there is a

mentalist and behaviorist viewpoint to language attitudes. According to the
mentalist view, attitudes are a "mental and neutral state of readiness which
cannot be observed directly, but must be inferred from the subject's
introspection". Difficulties arising from this viewpoint include the question
that from what data can attitudes be derived, and in what way are they
quantifiable. According to behaviorism, attitudes are a dependent variable
that can be statistically determined by observing actual behavior in social
situations. This also causes problems; it can be questioned whether attitudes
can be defined entirely in terms of the observable data (Dittmar 1976: 181).
Fasold suggests that attitudes toward a language are often the
reflection of attitudes towards members of various ethnic groups (Fasold

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1984: 148): people's reactions to language varieties reveal much of their
perception of the speakers of these varieties (Edwards 1982: 20).

Many studies have demonstrated that judgments of the quality and

prestige of language varieties depend on knowledge of the social
connotations which they possess. Thus, for instance, the use of dialects and
accents would be expressions of social preference, which reflect an
awareness of the status and prestige accorded to the speakers of these
varieties. A prestige standard form of a language has no inherent aesthetic
or linguistic advantage over nonstandard varieties. The prestige is usually
the product of culture-bound stereotypes passed on from one generation to
the other (ibid., 21).

Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985) stress the importance of the

nature of intergroup relations in the discussion of language attitudes and
uses: they vary as the nature of intergroup relations changes. When
relations change, status relationships, and therefore perceptions, attitudes
and uses, change. Speakers select their code from a variety of socially
marked models. Change takes place when the social values of the models
change and the behavior of the speech community also changes (ibid, 172).

When studying language attitudes, the concept of motives is

important. Two basic motives are called instrumental and integrative
motives. If L2 acquisition is considered as instrumental, the knowledge in a
language is considered as a "passport to prestige and success". The
speaker/learner considers the speaking/learning of English as functional
(Ellis 1991: 117). On the other hand, if a learner wishes to identify with the
target community; to learn the language and the culture of the speakers of
that language in order to perhaps be able to become a member of the group,
the motivation is called integrative. In generally, research has proved the
integrative motivation to have been more beneficial for the learning of

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another language (Loveday 1982: 17-18). On the other hand, Gardner &
Lambert, for instance, have found out that where the L2 functions as a
second language (i.e. it is used widely in the society), instrumental
motivation seems to be more effective. Moreover, motivation derived from
a sense of academic or communicative success is more likely to motivate
one to speak a foreign/second language (Ellis 1991: 118).

B. Measuring Language Attitude

A language attitude can be positive or negative. In reality, some people may

also hold a neutral attitude. To measure attitude toward a language and its
speaker, there are two methods to be applied.

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 interviewee’s 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?

An indirect method is a method to measure someone’s 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.

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 C. Language Attitude towards Sociolinguistics

Imagine you are sitting at home and the phone rings. You answer it
and find yourself talking to a stranger on the other end of the line. What are
you thinking as you listen to them?

When you talk to someone, you start to form opinions about them,
sometimes solely on the basis of the way they talk (Chambers 2003: 2–11).
The last time you rang a servicecenter to buy something over the phone, or
to complain about something, you would havespoken to a complete
stranger. And yet, within minutes or even seconds, you probablycomposed
quite a detailed picture of who you were talking to. Were they male, or
female?Were they a native speaker of English? Did they have a strong
regional dialect, or could youperhaps only say very vaguely where they
come from (‘somewhere in Scotland’ or ‘probablythe South’)? You might
decide that you think they are Asian or a Pacific Islander. You mayalso
have strong ideas about whether they are ‘nice’, ‘friendly’ and ‘competent’,
or whetherthey are ‘rude’, ‘disinterested’ and ‘stupid’.

We draw very powerful inferences about people from the way they
talk. Our attitudes to different varieties of a language color the way we
perceive the individuals that use thosevarieties. Sometimes this works to
people’s advantage; sometimes to their disadvantage. Forinstance, in the
university where I work, a number of people speak with the southern
BritishOxbridge accents that are generally associated with privilege, respect
and success. Theyseem to be found more often in the senior ranks of the
university than people who don’t. Ofcourse, there are exceptions – the head
of the university college who still speaks a clearlynorthern variety of
English – and the exceptions are as interesting as the rule.

Attitude is an important notion in the study of bilingualism and

multilingualism. Attitude may be defined as the sum total of a person’s

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psychological construct towards certain objects, institution, persons, ideas,
etc. Attitude owes its origin to the collective behavior of the members of a
social group. It plays a crucial role in the social behavior of an individual as
it defines and promotes certain behavior.

According to Baker (1988), attitudes are learned predispositions, and

are not inherited. They are relatively stable and are affected by experiences.
Attitudes are complex constructs. Choudhry (1993:22) emphasizes the
factors like motivation, prestige, identity, language loyalty and the
importance of their relationship to attitude.

Linguistic attitudes may be positive or negative, as well as neutral

feeling attached to a particular language situation. Fasold (1984: 148)
suggests that the attitude towards a language is often the reflection of the
attitudes towards the members of that speech community. People’s reaction
towards a language variety reveals their perception regarding the speakers
of that variety — their social, political and economic backdrop. Edward
(1982: 20) discusses the major dimensions along which the views about
language can vary. They are social status and group solidarity.

Modern language attitudes research began in the 1930s with one of

the pioneers in this area of investigation being Thomas Hatherley Pear (Pear
1931). He questioned whether the voice was capable of yielding sufficient
cues for reliable and valid personality assessment. He concluded that the
judgments of personality from the voice are based not on any accurate
reflection of personality found in the voice, but that the judges tended to
stereotype the personality of the speaker according to the sound of his voice
(Pear 1931:30). These findingswere further supported by the results of
studies conducted by Fay and Middleton (e.g. 1939, 1940).

The two most important theories on language study are the

behaviorist theory and the mentalist theory. According to the behaviorist

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theory attitudes are behaviors or responses to a given situation. The
mentalist theory, on the other hand, means that language cannot be
observed directly since it is mental. However, it can be inferred using the
right stimuli. For behaviorists attitudes only have one component – the
affective. This approach has a serious scientific disadvantage since the
affective component alone cannot predict verbal conduct. This is not the
case with the mentalist approach since attitudes, for the mentalists, have
three components: the affective, the conative and the cognitive. This
approach makes it possible to predict linguisticbehavior and has therefore
become first choice for developing theoretical models on language studies
(Obiols 2002)

D. Language Attitude in Language Learning

Learners‟ attitudes towards the language being learned have been

researched manytimes by language teachers and psychologists. Most of the
researchers agreed that favorable (positive) attitude towards the language
will affect more positive result inthe learning. In contrast, negative view to
the language being learned will be more likely to cause negative result in
the study.

There are some factors that can influence the language attitude, as
follows:
a. The prestige and power of the language

In 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

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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 strong Japanese identify and a
language loyalty.

b. Historical background of nations

Some Middle East people may not want tostudy English because
they learn from their history that Western people were Colonialist. The
view is possibly strengthened with somecomplicated contemporary disputes
between the Western and Arabic (Muslim) cultures.

c. The Social and Traditional Factor

In 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.

d. The Language internal system

People 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 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) Suharto’s idiolect. Thus,
people who copied Suharto’s 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

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words such as membangunkan (to develop), memberikan (to give) would
sound /membaᶇunkən/ and /membərikən/, which isdifferent from /
membaᶇunkan / and / membərikan/, as spoken by Indonesian in general)
would be judged to be „Suharto’s people‟, which was negative label in that
time.

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 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSSION

Based on the explanation above, we can conclude that language

attitude is the feeling that people can feel to respond another language. In
Indonesian people, it can be showed through behavior or gesture. Language
attitude can be also defined as people’s respond when another speaks to
them. Someone can show different attitude in communication. Besides,
people can show positive or negative attitude. For instance, Javanese is no
longer use their own language because of some problems. It can be caused
because the societies do not let them to use such the language.

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 References

Fasold, R. (1990). The sociolinguistics of language. Oxford: Blackwell.

Lambert, W. E., Giles, H., Gardner, R. G. and Fillerbaum, S.

1960.Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology 60.44-51.

Meyerhoff, Miriam. Introducing Sociolinguistics. New York: Routledge.

Obiols, M. S. 2002. “The Matched Guise Technique: a Critical

Approcimation to a Classic Test for Formal Measurement of
Language Attitudes.” Online.Internet. 5 March 2016. Available
http://www.cultura.gencat.net/llengcat.noves

Romaine, S. 1980. ”Stylistic variation and evaluative reactions to speech:

Problems in the investigation of linguistic attitudes in
Scotland.”Language and Speech 23.213-32.

Ryan, E. B. Giles, H. 1982. Attitudes towards Language Variation. Edward

Arnold. London.

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