Attitudinal and affective response toward accented English

The study evaluated attitudinal and affective responses toward accented English based on variation in role identity and intelligibility. While American English was preferred, intelligible foreign accent resulted in more positive attitude and affective response compared to a foreign accent that was unintelligible. In addition, friends were viewed more positively for affect and attitude compared to teaching assistants regardless of accent. The study also assessed whether the strength of participants' ethnic identity had any effect on attitude or affect. As predicted, people exhibiting strong ethnic identity preferred American English while people with weak ethnic identity were more accepting of foreign accent. These results suggest that greater intelligibility of foreign accent appears to be related to both more positive attitudes and affective responses especially for people who identify strongly with their ethnic group. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.