Lingua 36 (1975), 147-161

0 North-Holland Publishing Company

NEGATIVE PRESTIGE, LINGUISTIC INSECURITY,

AND LINGUISTIC SELF-HATRED’

Ronald KS. MACAULAY

Pitzer College, Claremont, G.&J, 91711, U.S.A.

Received April 1974

The problem of investigating linguistic attitudes in urban speech communities is con-

sidered in connection with three studies, in New York, in Quebec, and in Glasgow, each
of which employed a different approach. In each case, the methodological problems raise
questions regarding the reliability of the conclusions and suggest that a more systematic
approach to the study of linguistic attitudes is needed.

The contemporary preoccupation with larmage ..” variation and COIWTII

about the importance of language in educaticn has led to an increased
interest in Zznguage attitudes (e.g. Shuy and Fa!;old 1973) and scholars
in a variety of disciplines are looking fz methods of investigating such
attitudes. HotNever, the major problem, as Aghtlyisi and Fishman ( 1970:
150) in their survey of the research point out, i:<that of validating atti-
tude studies. ln no aspect of language attitude studies is this more dit’t‘i-
cult than in Close studies which are concerned Gth the speaker’s atti-
tude towards his own speech. The present papeT examines three attempts
to explore such attitudes using differe techniques. Labor (I 966a), in
New York, employed a test to establish an index of Linguistic Insecurity
as well as asking direct questions in the interview; d’Anglejar and Tucker
(1973), in Montreal, used a questionnaire to elii:it scaled or forced
choice responses; and Macaulay and Trevelyan ( 1973), in Clzsgcw, used
the responses to open-ended questions in interviews. As will appear,
none of these techniques is completely satisfactory and the problem of
obtaining reliable information about the speaker’s attitude towards his
own speech remains a critical one for sociolinguistic inve:;tigation.

’ ‘I’he research referred to in this paper was supported by the Social Scknce Research Council,
the Scottish Council for Research in Education, and the research and development committee
of Pitzer College. I am indebted to Dell Hymes and William Labov for comments on an crrrlwr
draft.
148 R. KS. Macauloy/Linguistic attitudes iv urban speech

in his study of Lower East Side New York, Labov (1966a) reported
n the hostility which New Yorkers displayed towards New York City
speech and their feelings of linguistic insecurity:

“‘The term ‘linguistic self-hatred’ is not too extreme to apply to the situation which emerges
e interviews.” Cp.489)
have seen that the dominant theme in the subjective evaluation of speech by New
s is a profound linguistic insecurity, which is connected with a long-standing pattern of
e prestige for New York City speech.” (p. 500)
s far as language is concerned, New York City may be characterized as a great sink OS
tive ~fe~tige.” (p. 499)

s conclusions were based mainly on two kinds of evidence: (1)

x of linguistic insecurity; and (2) responses to questions in the
w which dealt specifically with linguistic attitudes. The first of
ascribed by Labov as follows:

t words is pronounced by the interviewer in two different ways.

to circle the number of the pronunciation which he thinks ir cur-
k [sc. tick in British English j the pronunciation which he actually
in which the respondent circles one form and checks another is the
abbreviated IL1 1,” (p_ 476)

ity of this test may obscure some of its shortcomings. The

lem is to know Iwhat the respondent; understood by
rc:ak.-down of the items an which his
ic insecurity but thie two pronuncia-
g. tomato, vase, aunt, tune, new) could be
nting a contrast between British and American English.
n the case that a number of informants ‘knew’ that it is
:z], [a:nt_!, etc., because they have been
tre and know that everyone who speaks ‘correctly’
owever, t;, admit that one speaks with
necessarily be taken as an indication of
Secondly, and more significantly, it is important
he infolnants in responding to the task.
security informants had to claim that
emand came at the end of a long inter-
various aspects of language in which it
to the most obtuse individuals that
e criticized in the speech of New Yorkers. In
 R. KS. Macaulay/Linguistic attitudes in urban speech 149

the circumstances, the surprising thing is not that some informants

showed signs of insecurity but that out of 73 informants 26 claimed
that they spoke absolutely ‘correctly’ and a further 20 admittcd to at
most only two deviations from ‘correctness’. It would be reasonable to
argue that these figures show remarkable 1:inguistic confidence on the
part of two thirds of the informants.
The second kind of evidence that Labov adduces consists of the rc-
sponses to questions about linguistic attitudes. This section also comes
towards the end of the interview and, most importantly, after the Sub-
jective Reaction Test in which the informa.nts were asked to respond to
taped examples of New York speech. Once again it is necessary to cm@w-
size what a positive response towards New York City !speech means in
these circumstances. It is an assertion that in spite of any implied den&a-
tion of New York speech in the questions or in the earlier part of the
interview the informant wishes to affirm the values of the community in
which he lives. In this situation, it is impressive that only half cf the in-
formants expressed a negative attitude towards New York City speech.
Labov also presents as evidence the responses to a question about the
attitude of people who live outside of the city towards New York C‘it:.
speech. Two thirds of the New York informants thought that outsiders
did not like New York City speech. This contrasts with the view of outS.
of-town informants in the survey; only a cluarter of them reported th;lt
outsiders disliked New York City speech. Labov interprets the rcsponsc
of the New Yorkers as a projection of their own feelings: “‘When most
New Yorkers say that outsiders dislike New York City speech, they ;irc
describing an attitude which is actually th.eir own” (p, 488). It is irnllos-
sible for an outside observer to judge to what extent this interpretation
is justified but the interpretation itse can hardly be takeri as EVIDkN(‘E
of ‘linguistic self-hatred’ and other in rp:r*etatIons may be equally vAJ.
For example, it is possible that the e fact cf asking the question ifl-
fluenced the informants towards a negative response; in other words, thl:
positive responses may be much more significant thaII the negative (J<~w
because the question itself suggests the pcsssibilily of antipathy 011the
part of outsiders.
It seems reasonable to conclude that, whatev’er the impression gained
irom the interviews themselves, the evidence Labov presents does not
strongly support the notion of ‘linguistic %#+atred’ that 1~ su
This conclusion should be comforting rather than the reverse, for the
view put forward by L.abov is actually a shock?ng one. It is, on fhe fac0
 R. KS. cuulQy/l.inguisticattitudes in urban speech

xi~& to say the least, that the members of a speech com-

uld hold an extremely negative view of their own speech
me time maintaining a form of speech that strongly asserts
ague identity of the community. Labov’s description of New York
gative prestige’ seems onesided; he does not
ion that he was equally interested im uncovering positive

(I 373) used a questionnaire to elicit informa-

‘s attitudes towards his own speech. Their sample
ian students, teachers, and workers in three
vince Montreal, Alma, and Quebec. The
40 multiple choice and semantic differential type
ith the subjects’ “opinions about the exis-
form of French in Quebec what this form
hey are satisfied with their own speech style”
r found that all groups were “moderately,
their own speech style (x = 3.76, on a

re satisfied with their speech style may reflect accu-

cial stratsr. It may, on the other hand, be a conse-
ovement movements which have tended to make French
ch style.” (pp. 11-2)

staff of how to interpret the respcnses. D’Angle_jan

s~~~~sting that the normal response would be at
end of the scale and that anything less indicates a
nterpretation nay be justified but
o evidence, such as might be provided by*, say, the
pie of English Canadians. In the absence of
to draw negative conclusions from a

ects” attitudes towards their own speech

rises to a question about how their own
form of French in Quebec” (p. 13).
a loaded question, 11% of the subjects de-
thereby as~rting that their variety

a more po Stive attitude towwardstheir speech

nce of this+
 R. K. S. Macalrlal,/Lirt~lristic at titlrdcJs irr urharr sp W/I 151

of French was as good as any in Quebec. For the others, the ~~crccnta~cs
of responses for the four aspects of langu;lge that WC’I-C’ rwn tiorwci NC ;IS
follows: Vocabulary SF%, Pronunciation 42$, Intoniltion 32%, and
Grammar 1 1%. These figures are hardly suggestive of great linguistic in-
security; as in interpreting Labov’s results it may be worthwhile crnpha-
sizing the positive aspect. Almost 60% of the subjects SL‘Cnothing wrong
with their pronunciation and almost 90% tire quite sure of their ~rarnrnar
finly with regard to vocabulary does the ixoportion of those who are un-
sw: of their language rise above 50% and there the results art‘ at’f~tod
by the large number of responses in this category from students, who
often have good reasons to be aware of their inadequacies in vocabulary.
.//-IAnglejan and Tucker also included three questions which wc’rc’cl+
1”
signed “to probe (subjects’ 1 feelings 01‘insecurity or dct’cnsivcnc‘ss with
rxspect to their language’” (p. 19). ??xy pqmrt t,!laf. Ki”/; d‘ t!:c ~::bjcc~s
will accept correction from a Qucbecer but only SO?%1‘rom a European,
tijough they caution against attaching too much importance to the krttcr
rinding since many workers said, in answ1.x to a previous quest ion, t h;1t
<hey had not met Europeans. To what cxtcnt a willingness to ;Iccc’pt c’or-
section should be taken as a sign of linguktic insecurity is hr t’rom oh-
vious but it would hardly indicate def‘ens~~vcncss,D’hnglcj~l and ‘l‘uckcr
then report on the subjects’ desire fol* ‘ccxrtlct sptxc4i as indicated by
their responses to a question such as: “ Qt.i’t’st CCq:li ;I 1~plus iniportrlriic
pour vous: que votre prononciation s:rti “‘c‘orrccte” OII cllit’ vo t rc pronon-
ciation garde son caractire QuCb&ois?” III’>.19). They t’o~ncl that 7% o!’
the subjects favored correctness over erhnicity in grammar, 7CU f’avorcd
correctness over ethnicity in vocabulary, and 60% favored corrtxtncss
over ethnicity in pronunciation. Thesl: %qonses present a difficult
problem in interpretation since the q~~~ion would appear to IX ot’ the
damn&-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t t:ategory. However, the f&A th;lt
40% of the sut>jects were prepared to retain their Qui’tGcois pronuncia-
tion in spite of the implied denigration can hardly bc taken as evidtzncc
of linguistic ins(:curity. Whether the responses of those who preferred
‘correctness’ should be taken as evidence of linguistic insecurity is, how-
ever, far from 4ear, since correctness like motherhood is hard to be
against.
D’Anglejan iinn Tucker conclude frcjn.1the respor;!ses to the question-
naire and also 1he subjective reactions to samples of speech:

“We believe that we have uncovereda generalmdaicv with respect to lan@u#e whdt wdl
152 R. KS. Macaulay/Linguistic attitudes in urban speech

might typify [ subjectsi such as ours who come from predominantly lower-class backgrounds. It
may, however, also derive from the awareness, motivated by past and present speech improve-
ment movements, that they speak a low prestige form of the language.” (p. 23)

D’Anglejan and Tucker are entitled to their belief but the outside ob-
server who does not share their preconceptions, as exemplified in their
questions, l~ldy feel that their evidence does not support their conclusion.
The information collected in the Glasgow survey comes solely from
remarks elicited or freely volunteered in interviews. It would have been
difficult if not impossible to use the method of Labov’s Index of Lin-
guistic Insecurity because the notion of ‘correctness’ in prlanunciation is
explicitl,y problematic in Glasgow, as in most of Scotland, on account of
nationalistic feelings. (In retrospect, the method of the IL1 might have
been a useful way of promoting fruitful discussion of the notion of ‘cor-
rectness” but this opportunity was missed.) The interviews in Glasgow
also differed considerably from those which Labov conducted in New
York. The Glasgow interviews fell into three categories: (1) general
public; (2) members of the teaching profession, at primary, secondary,
and tertiary levels; (3) personnel managers and others directly involved
in interviewing job applicants. The interviews with the general public
were similar in certain respects to those that Labov conducted in New
York, though they were much shorter. However, there was one impor-
tant difference in that in Glasgow the informants were not told that the
purpose of the interview was to obtain a sample of their speech, Instead,
they were told that the purpose of the interview was to ascertain their
opinions on the changes that have taken place in the city. This indirect
approach was adopted in the hope of minimizing the number of refusals
and also of reducing the self-consciousness of the informants during the
interview. It was apparently successful in the first aim but not notice-
ably so ill the second. Probably more was lost than gained ‘by the decep-
tion involved (not to mention the ethical question), but it is possible
that because of it the informants felt less constrained in their answers to
the questions about linguistic attitudes than was the case in New York.
Moreover, the task corresponding to Labov’s Subjective Reaction Test
came at the very end of the interview so that the responses about lin-
guistic attitudes could not have been affected by the critical stance which
this task demands. The teachers and the employers, on the other hand,
were told that the p~_:se of the interviews was to discover how much
importarlce they attached to quality of speech. Thus, although speech
 R.K.S. MacauIay/Linguistic attitudes in urbaK1speech 153

was the explicit topic of the inter4ew in these two categories, it was
made clear that it was not the informant’s own speech that was of inter-
est but his opinions about the speech of his fellow citizens. Not sur-
prisingly, a number of the informants in these two categories commented
on their own speech and all were aware of the taple-recorder’s presence.
(Four of the employers who agreed to be interviewed refused to be tape-
recorded.)
It would be possible to present a fairly impressive picture of ‘linguistic
self-hatred’ in Glasgow, based on comments in the interviews. Among
the epithets used (mainly by the teachers) to describe Glasgow speech
were: ‘harsh’, ‘ugly’, ‘coarse’, ‘rough’, ‘guttural’, ‘slovenly’, ‘uncouth’,
and ‘revolting’. There were also a few favorable comments about the
vigor and homeliness of Glasgow speech but they were much less com-
mon than the adverse remarks. Although the informants were not asked
directly about the opinion of outsiders some informants remarked on the
low esteem in which Glasgow speech was held by others. For example,
one working-class woman said :

“Well, a lot of people don’t like the Glasgow dialect, the way I’m speaking n:xv. You see they
don’t like that at all, that’s not proper English. Thi% is thebay we’ve always sp&en.” (039)

However, merely to list the percentage of informants who made nega-

tive comments about Glasgow speech would provide only a partial and
possibly misleading impression of linguistic attitudes in Glasgow. The
situation is more complex than that and some of the responses may give
a distorted view because other crucial questions have not been asked.
For example, one fifteen-year-old midldle-class boy, when asked if the
way you spoke was important for gettin a job, replied:

“I think it does. If you were _m employer and somebody came in to see you with a broad
Glasgow accent, and then another boy, man, came in with an English accent, you’d be more in-
clined to give the Englishman the job because he h;ad a nicer way of speaking.” (0 11)

This seems like a good example of what Labov calls ‘linguistic self-
hatred’, an awareness of the inferioriti4 of one’s own form of speech to
that of another group. However, when the same boy was asked if he
would change the way he spoke to sound like an Englishmail in order to
get a better job, he said:

“I don’t know that I would. I wouldn’t like to have an English accent. I think it’s a very daft
154 R. KS. Macaulay/Linguistic attitudes in urbbn speech

one. They pronounce the words correctly but they don’t sound very nice. In your own environ-
ment you’d feel out of place. If you live in Glasgow you must talk like a Glaswegian, but not to
the extent of broad Glasgow.”

This is a much harder remark to characterize. It could be taken as re-

vealing a confused and incoherent attitude towards Glasgow speech.
However, it would probably be fairer to say that it shows a very percep-
tive awareness of the values that prevail in the community: (1) there is
the Englishman’s way of speaking (familiar from radio and television if
not from direct experience) which is ‘correct!’ accordin{: to some external
standa% and might appeal to an employer but which sounds ‘daft’ in
Glasgol?;; (2) there is a local form of speech, ‘Glaswegian’, which is more
appropriate than the Englishman’s way of speaking for members of the
community; (3) there are, however, local forms of speech, ‘broad
Glaswegian’, which are less highly valued within the community, though
not ‘out of place’ there.
A desire to discriminate between different forms of Glasgow speech
was frequently found among the informants, particularly the teachers
and the middle-class adults, and it contrasts with the attitude Labov
found in New York. He points out (1966a:489-90) that, rather to his
surprise, most of his informants were willing to comment on ‘New York
City speech’ in general without apparently feeling the need to make
distinctions between the speech of different groups of New Yorkers. In
‘Glasgow, many informants insisted that it was necessary to distinguish
between a Glasgow accent and what was usually categorized as ‘broad’
or ‘very broad’ speech. Almost all the adult informants maintained that
regional characteristics of speech were valuable and that nothing should
be done to eliminate them:

“It would be boring if we all spoke the same.” (Tll, Primary school teacher)

“It reflects the culture and it’s good you should have separate cultures.”
(T16, Secondary school teacher)
“The differences between villages, even, this is colorful, this is great.”
(T39, University lecturer)
“I think it adds color and variety to life. I... ] I would hate it if we all spoke BBC English.”
(T44, University lecturer)

However, at the same time, there were frequent negative comment?

about ‘slovenly’ or ‘careless’ speech. Sometimes this led to an expression
of views which appear to be incompatible:
 R. KS. Macaulay/Linguistic: attitudes in urban speech 155

“We should teach them to speak politely :nd. clearly but we shouldn’t interfere with accent.
If I was a parent I would resent my children being taught to speak differently, as if my accent
wasn’t good enough.”
(T 18, Secondary school teacher)

The difficulty arises because some of the featurfes which the teacher
wishes to change may be among those which give the speech of the par-
ents its distinctive quality. In general, the informants seemed vaguely
but not precisely aware of a distinction between regional characteristics
of speech and those which are related to social class differences. A. failure
to distinguish (or, at least, express the distinction) between these two
aspects of speech presumably accounts for such apparently confused
remarks as the following:
“A Glasgow accent I couldn’t object to because I have one myt;elf. What I do object to is a
G’+-...~ . -c mll’aA
I~~UW dzcellr dmr +r\ ol,r,n lag Q~PPP~
Lu aAvrdh, UYYVIs.. What is generally rega.rded as Glasgow speech is not
Glasgow speech at all, it is just bad speech, associated with the Glasgow accent. I don’t have
anything against a regional accent at all.”
(T43, Training college lecturer)

This was a very intelligent and well educated informant who made -many
sensitive and perceptive comments on the importance of language in the
primary school and her remarks illustrate the difficulties which .::for-
mants may face in attempting to express such discriminations. Other in-
formants were at least clear on the source of their negative feelings:

“l’he accent of the lowest state of Glaswegians is the ugliest accent one can encounter, but
that is partly because it is associated with the unwashed and th.e violent.”
(TOl, University lecturer)

“A terribly broad accent is not nice, but is is not so much the accent but what the people are
saying and the way they’re saying it. Very often we associate accents with drunk? 2nd women
shouting. That would destroy any accent,”
(T18, Secondary school teacher)

Comments such as these can certainly be considered negative but it does

not seem right to cite them as examples of ‘linguistic self-hatred’ in the
sense in which Labov used the expression. In fact, the overall impression
from the interviews, in spite of many negative-sounding comments, is
that Glaswegians do not particularly dislike the speech of their fellow-
citizens, or at least not the speech of those they recognize as being simi-
lar to themselves.
However, it is necessary to distinguish ‘linguistic self-hatred’ from
l c
13 6 R. KS. Macaukzy fLinguistic attitudes in urban speech

linguisiic insecurity. The Glasgow survey provides extensive evidertie of

linguistic insecurity in Glasgow, as illustrated by the following exaq&s:

“I’m not a speaker as you can see. I don’t .- I’m just a common sort of - you know I’m not -
I’ve often wished I’d gone to elocution lessons because 1 meet so many people in my job and 1
feel as if I’m lower when it comes to speaking, you know.”
(028, Middle-class man)

“Personally, I think it’s difficult to talk. It is in tutorials at University. In the three years 1
didn’t open my mouth once in the tutorials. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the ideas or the knowl-
edge, it was just having to talk in front of other peoplle. And in the university too, it’s strange
because il lot of them do have cultured accents which doesn’t help other people a iot because
their acc(:r;f isn’t as good”
(T26, Secondary school teacher)

These ,:ornments seem much more extreme examples of linguistic inse-

curity .:han any that Labov cites. Ilt would also be reasonable to consider
them examples of ‘linguistic self-hatred’ but in d different sense from
that used by Labov. These speakers are not referring to the inferiority of
Glasgolw speech in comparison with some outside form of speech but to
differences between varieties of speech within the city itself. Most of the
speakers these two informants felt inferior to would be easily identifi-
able as Glaswegians by their speech. The number of informants who
admitted to feelings of linguistic :insecurity in terms such as these was
fairly small but there was other evidence that linguistic insecurity is
widesps*ead in Glasgow. Almost three quarters of the teachers and more
than half the employers commented on the inarticulateness of Scottish
childreii and young adults, particularly in comparison with their English
counterparts:

“They are less fluent than pupils in England.” (T23, Secondary school teacher)

“Scottish children feel more inferior in an interview [than southern English children).”
(Tl 0, Secondary school teacher)
“We do find that people with extremely good brains, who have come through the system, a
remarkably high percent of them are tongue:-tied, are very poor at communicating in public.”
(T44, University lecturer)

Sometimes lack of confidence was specifically mentioned:

‘The pupils here feel they’re at a disadvantage. English children will make a guess at what
they haven’t been taught, the Scats child won’t because he hasn’t been taught it. The same lack
of confidence applies to their speech. They feel less articulate, but I don’t think it’s true.”
(T08, Secondary school teacher)
 R. KS. Macaukzy/l..inguistic attitudes in urban speech 157

There was a tendency among the informants to accept this state of af-
fairs fatalistically:

“A person from the West of Scotland has got an inbuilt shyness.”

(E03a, Personnel manager, national engineering firm)
‘There is a clear shyness or reserved nature on the part of the Western Scot.”
(E04, Personnel manager, national manufacturing firm)
“There is an inhibition in the avera$:e Scot.” CT19, Primary school teacher)

“There is something in the temperament, something in the speech habits of the West of
Scotland whereby it is not done for people to speak at any length.”
(T42, Training college lecturer)
“Maybe it’s just our dour natures.” (E07, Staff manageress, local factory)

Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that it is simply an inherited disposition

since, in general, as might be expected, middle-class pupils were rated
su 0 prior in1‘ cnmglrincr
oyvuna116
ahilitxl
UlllLY
+.n
L,v *I#
woil;ing-clGss p*GpiiS, psupils ai fee-paying

schools superior to those at Corporation schools, and graduates above

non-graduates, although comments on linguistic insecurity were not re-
stricted to any single age group or social class. More important is the fact
that young school leavers were reported to gain confidence in regular
employment, undergraduates between matriculation and graduation,
junior executives during their period of training, and young teachers
during their first year of teaching. Most importart of all, perhaps, is the
improvement in confidence and articulateness reported to follow an ex-
tended absence from Glasgow.
In some ways the evidence from the Glasgow survey seems to fit the
kind of extreme terms Labov uses to describe the situation in New York
(see p. 148) better than Labov’s own evi ce. Yst the Glasgow investi-
gators felt that it would be lrnisleading to characterize Glaswegians as
generally displaying ‘linguistic self-hatred’ or Glasgow as “a great sink of
negative prestige”. Is the difference between the conclusions from the
Glasgow and the New York surveys merely one of interpretation? Cer-
tainly, it would be unwise to rule out the effect of subjective impressions
on the investigator. Labov rnay have gained a stronger impression of neg-
ative attitudes from the interviews than the actual evidence he presents
will support, and the reverse may have happened in Glasgow. However,
it is also likely that the kind of evidence collected in the two surveys was
affected by the ways in which it was elicited. As was pointed out above,
Labov’s responses were collected in circumstances in which. the infor-
mants’ critical faculties had been aroused and it is not irrelevant that ‘to
158 R. K.S. ~~aalulay!Lin~puisr.icattitudes in urban speech

criticize’ is often equated with ‘10 find fault with’. Moreover, it was also
suggested that Labov’s evidence could be interpreted as displaying a
much less negative attitude than he claims. However, there is a more
func”amenta1 point which concerns the reliability of responses to value-
la/?en questions.
Trudgill(1972) observes that in ,the Norwich survey “many informants
who initially stated that they did not speak properly, and would like to
do so, admitted, if pressed, that they perhaps would not reaZ& like to,
and that they would almost certainly be considered foolish, arrogant or
disloyal by their friends and family if they did” (p. 184). It is obvious
that when, where, and how you ask a ccl-tain question may be as impor-
tant as its paraphrasable content. In particular, when dealing with such
emotional topics as attitudes towards language, the risk of interviewer
bias may be very great. Trudgill’s observation should serve as ;i warning
of tfi.e danomc
s.&.v* inwnl
3 111 10d ia taking ce;rtain stateml:nts at their face value.
."l%b
Labov himself had earlier drawn attention to a paradox in thG New York
situation:
“We must assume that people in New York City want to talk :j~ they do, yet this fact is not
at all obvious in any overt response that you can draw froll! in&view subjects.” (1966b: 108)

This observation casts doubts on the value of the evidence of linguistic

attitudes collected in the New York survey. Ideally, any conclusions
drawn from interviews such as those conducted in New York and
Glasgow should be supplemented by information from other sources.
Labor demonstrated this brilliantly for thl: use of tne variable (r) in the
department store survey (1966a:63--89) but he did not have any inde-
ndent evidence for linguistic attitudes. However, there is an even more
damental problem in the investigation of linguistic attitudes.
The Glasgow interviews with teachers and employers were held under
what appeared to be fairly favorable conditions and in many cases the
discussions ghat resulted were lively and informative. Yet at the end of
these two sets of interviews two serious doubts remained. First, it was
unclear how fair it is to ask anyone to give adequate answers to complex
estions without advance warning. Secondly, there was anxiety about
e extznt to which the responses w(:re affected by the language avail-
e to the informants. The first point may be less important in inter-
views with ordinary members of the community but the second one is
relevant to all types of informant. 0;ne possible explanation of the desire
of Labov’s informants to categorize ?Jew York City speech in general
 R. KS. Macaulay/~!&uistic attitudes in urban speech 159

may have been the lack of suitable vocabulary in which to draw distinc-
tions. In Glasgow, the existence of the term ‘broad’ as a label for certain
varieties of speech made at least one distinction easy; presumably, there
is no comparable term available to New Yorkers. However, even the
teachers in Glasgow had difficulty in talking coherently about linguistic
attitudes and the interviews may give a misleading impression of their
views. Perhaps it RSwrong to accept impromptu remarks in interviews as
EVIDENCE of attitudes. Certainly, such statements can be taken as in-
dications of possible points of view but the informants are not testifying
on oath and it is possible that many of them would not be consistent if
pressed in the manner that Trudgill suggests. This is particularly impor-
tant in dealing with topics such as speech where it soon becomes obvious
that some informants lack the terminology in which to express a point
of view but it remains unclear as to whether this is a problem of expres-
sion or whether the informant does not see the situation clearly, perhaps
for lack of terms in which to conceptualize it. In Glasgow, it was hoped
that linguistic attitudes would be relatively easy to investigate because
quality of language is a possible topic of conversation for Glaswegians
and the exploratory interviews had shown that informants were willing
to talk about it. To a certain extent this expectation proved to be jus-
tified since the interviews produced extensive comments on Glasgow
speech, many of them showing considerable insight into the linguistic
situation. However, the success of the interviews in terms of the sheer
bulk of comments elicited raises questions about the kind of evidence
that can be collected in this way. Althou,gh the survey uncovered a great
deal of information relevant to the linguistic situation in Glasgow, many
of the statements in the interviews tended to be vague at the precise
points on which the investigation was focussed, and as the interviews
proceeded, this vagueness began to seem inevitable in the absence of any
ordinary vocabulary which would allow the informants to express them-
selves more clearly. IBecker and Geer (1957), in their comparison of par-
ticipant observation and interviewing, point out a basic nroblem:
“In interviewing members of groups other than our own, then, we are somevwat in the same
position as the anthropologist who must: learn a primitiv ; language, with thusim7;ortant differ-
ence that, as Ickeiser has put it, we often do not under:stand that we do not ur&istand and are
thus likely to make errors in interpreting what is said to us.” (p. 29)

Becker and Geer are mainly concerned about the risk of the investigator
misunderstanding “common English words when the interviewees use
 K. K. S. Macaulay/Linguistic attitudes in urban speech

them in some more or less esoleric way” (ibid.) but that is only half the
problem. The other half is that the mformant may understand a question
differently from the investigator and this danger is increased with the
use of limited response questionnaire items. Because of these hmitations
of language the evidence about linguistic attitudes which can be ob-
tained through interviews of the kind carried out in the Glasgow survey
is also limited.
The investigator into linguistic attitudes is thus faced with a rather
difficult choice of methods. On the one hand, there are tests such as that
employed by Labov to produce the Index of Linguistic Insecurity or ex-
perimental approaches such as those employed by Cheyne (1970) and
Giles (1970, 1!)7 1) in their studies of reactions to accents. These methods
provide easily quantifiable data but the results require interpretation at
the crucial point of the criterion of judgment used by the subject (e.g.
What did Labov’s informants understand by ‘correctness’? How impor-
tant did Cheyne’s subjects consider regional accent, which ‘was not
mentioned’ (p. 77) by the experimenter in administering the test?).
Another approach is to use a questionnaire of the type employed by
d’Anglejan anti Tucker. However, it is particularly important that the
evaluation of responses should be made in comparison with those of an
appropriate control group; otherw:ise, there is a danger of the investigator
misinterpreting the responses in accordance with his own preconcep-
tions. A third possibility is the use of open-ended questions in an inter-
view, with! the problems discussed above because of the lack of explicitly
clear and unambiguous language in which to discuss the issues.
robably the weakness in all three approaches lies in the attempt to
investigate such a complex question as linguistic attitudes from the out-
side on the basis of a single hit-or-miss trial. What is missing in all three
studies discussed above is corroboration from members of the speech
community that the investigators’ conclusions are consistent with percep-
tions of the situation within the community itself. This does not mean
that the methcds used in these studies must be discarded in favor of
participant observation, which .would be difficult to carry out on a suf-
ficiently wide scale in a large urban situation. Instead, a variety of ap-
proaches could be used to gather evidence of linguistic attitudes in the
f&t stage of the investigation. The conclusions from this part of the
study could then be used as the basis. for discussing the situation openly
and at length with other members of the community. Not only would
this provide an assessment of the accuracy of the conclusions drawn
 R.K.S. Macau~~,,‘Li~igltisticattitudes in urbarl speech 161

from the first part of the investigation but it should also indicate the
kind of terminology most likely to be clezly understood by members
of the speech community in discussing t:he subject. If the two parts of
the investigation suggested contradictory views, it wou!d be necessary to
undertake a third stage using some of the methods of the first stage,
modified in the light of the discussions in the second stage. An investiga-
tion on this scale would requi,re much more time than has been devoted to
this aspect of daita collecting in linguistic surveys until now but if lin-
guistic attitudes are as imporlant as has been suggested (Agheyisi and
Fishman 1970; Gardner and Lambert 1972: Shuy and Fasold 1973) it
is essential to have accurate il’iformation about them. In the meantime,
it may be prudent to treat wi,th caution categorical statements about the
linguistic attitudes wl,ich prevail in complex speech communities.

References

Agheyisi, R. and J.A. Fishman, 1970. Language attitude studies: A brief survey of methodologic-
cal approaches. Anthropol. Linguist. 12, 137 -57.
d’Anglejan, A. and G.R. Tucker, 1973. Sociolinguistic correlates of speech style in Quebec. In:
R.W. Shuy and R.W. Fasold (eds.), Language attitudes: Current trends and prospects.
Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press, l-27.
Becker, H.S. and B. Geer, 1957. Participant observation ;tnd interviewing: A comparison. Human
Organization 16, 28-32.
Cheyne, W.M., 1970. Stereotyped reactions to speakers with Scottish and English regional ac-
cents. Br. J. Sot. Clin. Psychol. 9, 77-9.
Gardner, R.C. and W.E. Lambert, 1972. Attitudes and motivation ix second language learning.
Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Giles, H., 1970. Evaluative reactions to accents. Educ. Rev. 22, ?! r -27.
Giles, H., 1971. Patterns of evaluation to R.P., South Welsh ancP Somerset accented speech. Br.
J. Sot. Clin. Psychol. 10,280- 1.
Labov, W., 1966a. The social stratification of English in Nt!w 1 ork City. Washington, D.C.:
Center for Applied Linguistics.
Labov, W., 1966b. Hypercorrection by the lower middle cl:lss as a factor in linguistic change. In:
W. Bright (ed.), Sociolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton, b4 - 113.
Macaulay, R.K.S. and G.D. Trevelyan, 1973. Language, education and employment in Glasgow.
(Final report to the Social Science Research Council) Ildinburgh: The Scottish Council for
Research in Education.
Shuy, R.W. and R.W. Fasold, 1973. Language attitudes: C .rrernt trends and prospects.
Washington, B.C. : Georgetown Univ. Press.
Trudgill, P., 1972. Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change m the urban British English of
Norwich. Lang. Sot. 1, 179-95.