Language Attitudes And Gender: Descriptors And Nationalistic Ideologies

Abstract

The present study explores language attitudes among 23 English language learners of Spanish enrolled in elementary Spanish. The data elicited from these participants were analyzed to see whether females used more positive adjectives to describe the Spanish language than their male counterparts (as shown in previous studies). The data were also analyzed to see whether the participants’ adjectives and comments supported evidence of nationalistic language ideology. The results mirrored those of past studies: females were more likely to describe Spanish with positive adjectives. Additionally, there was a great amount of nationalistic language ideology and ethnocentrism among the participants who felt negatively toward Spanish. The researcher argues that this may have contributed towards negative language ideologies reported by the participants.