Measuring implicit and explicit attitudes toward foreign-accented speech

dc.contributor.advisorNiedzielski, Nancyen_US
dc.creatorPantos, Andrew J.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-03-08T00:37:26Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-03-08T00:37:26Zen_US
dc.date.issued2011en_US
dc.description.abstractThe purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of listeners' attitudes toward foreign-accented speech and the manner in which those attitudes are formed. This study measured 165 participants' implicit and explicit attitudes toward US- and foreign-accented audio stimuli. Implicit attitudes were measured with an audio Implicit Association Test. The use of audio stimuli as repeated tokens for their phonological attributes represents an innovation in IAT methodology. Explicit attitudes were elicited through self-report. The explicit task was contextualized as a fictional medical malpractice trial; participants heard the recorded audio testimony of two actors (one US-accented and one Korean-accented) portraying opposing expert witnesses. Four test conditions counterbalanced across participants were created from the recordings. Participants rated the experts on fourteen dependent variables ('traits'): believability, credibility, judgment, knowledge, competence, trustworthiness, likeability, friendliness, expertise, intelligence, warmth, persuasiveness, presentation style, and clarity of presentation. Participants were also asked for their attitudes toward the speakers relative to each other (i.e., Which doctor would you side with in this dispute?). The question of speaker preference was posed as a binary choice, an 11- point slider scale measure, and two confirmation questions asking participants to state how fair they thought an outcome for each party would be. This study's hypothesis that participants' implicit and explicit attitudes toward the same speech would diverge was confirmed. The IAT results indicated an implicit bias [ D =.33, p∠.05] in favor of the US-accented speaker, while the self-report results indicated an explicit bias [ F (2,121)=3.969, p=.021, η 2 =.062] in favor of the foreign-accented speaker in the slider scale and confirmation questions [ F (2,121)=3.708, p=.027, η 2 =.058, and F (2,121)=3.563, p=.031, η 2 =.056]. While the binary choice question showed a trend toward favoring the foreign-accented speaker, the result was not significant. No discernable pattern was found to exist in attitudes toward the speaker by trait. This study's findings argue for the recognition of both implicit and explicit attitude constructs and the integration of implicit attitudes measurement methodologies into future language attitudes research. Additional theoretical implications of these findings for future language attitudes research are also discussed, including implications for selecting an appropriate cognitive processing model.en_US
dc.format.extent177 p.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.callnoTHESIS LING. 2011 PANTOSen_US
dc.identifier.citationPantos, Andrew J.. "Measuring implicit and explicit attitudes toward foreign-accented speech." (2011) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/70382">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/70382</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.digitalPantosAen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/70382en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectCommunication and the artsen_US
dc.subjectPsychologyen_US
dc.subjectLanguageen_US
dc.subjectLiteratureen_US
dc.subjectLinguisticsen_US
dc.subjectLanguage attitudesen_US
dc.subjectImplicit Association Test (IAT)en_US
dc.subjectForeign accenten_US
dc.subjectExplicit attitudesen_US
dc.subjectSocial psychologyen_US
dc.subjectCommunicationsen_US
dc.titleMeasuring implicit and explicit attitudes toward foreign-accented speechen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentLinguisticsen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineSocial Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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