The Social Psychology of Language: A Perspective for the 1980's11I am greatly indebted to N. Sidoti and D. M. Taylor for advice and suggestions about the substance of this paper.

Abstract

This chapter presents a perspective for 1980s about the social psychology of language. From the start of the movement in the 1950s, those involved have made substantial contributions and helped give life and structure to a promising new discipline. The selection is a personal one, presented more as illustrations than as crystal-ball readings for the field as a whole. Important policy decisions about bilingual education programs and educational attempts to improve second language competence require that this integration take place so soon that with the help of such an integration, guidelines, and limits can be suggested to policy makers about what can be realistically expected. Gardner and Smythe (1975) have gone further in exploring these aspects of attitudes and have found that persistence in language study also hinges in large part on the attitudes the pupil brings to school.