Current Issues in the Social Psychological Study of ‘Language Attitudes’: Constructionism, Context, and the Attitude–Behavior Link

This article focuses on two central points of debate: whether or not (language) attitudes should be regarded as stable mental entities, and the issue of the attitude–behavior link.

Abstract

Abstract Quantitative social psychological studies of ‘language attitudes’ (particularly speaker evaluation experiments using the ‘matched‐guise technique’) are a popular area of research. But they have also been the subject of much criticism, especially from the perspective of social constructionism. This article focuses on two central points of debate: the issue of whether or not (language) attitudes should be regarded as stable mental entities, and the issue of the attitude–behavior link. Contrary to what has been suggested, adopting a constructionist perspective on these issues does not entail abandoning all quantitative methodology in favor of qualitative (discourse) analysis. Rather, it means conceptualizing speaker evaluation experiments as contextually situated ‘communicative events’. Under such a recast, experiments can be usefully harnessed for the explication of sociolinguistic behavior such as strategic style‐shifting. More generally, quantitative ‘language attitude’ research needs to take constructionist considerations into account in order to retain its scientific relevance today.