Language Attitudes
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consider that the study of language attitudes in the black/white dynamic in the United
States requires treatment that takes into account the unique cultural and social
circumstances facing African Americans
Specificity in Assessing Respondent Characteristics
In their excellent review of research on language attitudes, Cargile and Bradac
(2001) call attention to the need for research models to encompass attitudinal and non-
attitudinal variables that mediate how listeners respond to others’ speech. In proposing a
general process model, Cargile and Giles discuss several characteristics of the speaker,
hearer, and response features present in language attitude investigations. The process
model of Cargile and Bradac includes three hearer characteristics: attitudes, stimuli
selection, and information processing. These authors develop the general viewpoint that
language attitude research would benefit from the inclusion of hearer predispositions
such as goals, moods, motivations, and expectations, as well as a consideration of the
stimuli available to respondents when their language attitudes are measured. Two
specific issues will be addressed here, the motivations of AAVE hearers, and vocalic
characteristics of AAVE speech samples.
There has been an emphasis on how white listeners respond to AAVE, but an
understudied question concerns how black listeners respond to AAVE. In analyzing
hearer motivations in language attitude research, one important variable that should be
introduced is stereotype threat (Steele, 1997). The notion of stereotype threat posits that
when individuals are confronted with a negative stereotype of themselves in a specific
situation, such persons may conform to the stereotype. In other words, in a particular
situation, members of a group who are reminded of negative stereotypic evaluations of
Convention