English, and international cross-cultural attitudes in China, Japan and South Korea

White, Daniel (2013) English, and international cross-cultural attitudes in China, Japan and South Korea. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

The findings of language attitude studies amongst learners of English have consistently demonstrated that native speakers of English are accorded higher evaluations in terms of status/prestige, whereas non-native speakers of English are often rated high in terms of social attractiveness/solidarity. For the majority of language attitude studies, the inclusion of native speakers of English in speech evaluation experiments has served as useful for investigating the complex attitudes towards English speech among English language learners. However, over the past two decades there has been a growing argument that the unprecedented spread of English language learning has led to questions over the ownership of the English language and the functions for its study, with many arguing that English is no longer learned primarily to communicate with native speakers of English, but as a means to communicate between those that do not share the same first language. Despite this, few studies have focused solely on attitudes held by English language learners in the expanding circle towards one another. Moreover, informants in language attitudes studies amongst English language learners have often been limited to informants of homogenous national groups, thus making direct comparisons between the multitudes of language attitude studies across national groups difficult.

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