The study of language attitudes is concerned with the social meanings people assign to language and its users. With roots in social psychology nearly a century ago, language attitudes research spans several academic disciplines and draws on diverse methodological approaches. In an attempt to integrate this work and traverse disciplinary boundaries and methodological proclivities, we propose that language attitudes—as a unified field—can be organized into five distinct—yet interdependent and complementary—lines of research: documentation, explanation, development, consequences, and change. After highlighting some of the key findings that have emerged from each area, we discuss several opportunities and challenges for future research.
This article is part of a larger project on language politics in the European Union (EU), with an empirical focus on questions concerning identity. Using Wortham’s (1996) deictic mapping technique, I examine how EU leaders position themselves with respect to a European identity through the use of pronouns. Using this discourse analytic framework, I show how, in a panel featuring leaders from current and prospective EU member states, a participant from Turkey juxtaposes his various identity positions with those of other panel members. The analysis focuses on short discourse fragments featuring discussions about European identity. The analysis reveals three identities constructed through pronoun use: neutral, non-European, and European. While leaders from current member states emphasize their Europeanness through pronoun use, the Turkish panelist portrays an identity in opposition to this European identity, thus exhibiting how the repetition of pronoun use patterns helps to create, recreate, and make visible certain identities.
Where two dialect areas collide, one finds border regions, which serve as dynamic sites for identity construction. Louisville, Kentucky, in its position on the south side of the Ohio River, the geographical and political border between Kentucky and Indiana, is located at one such collision. While previous work in Louisville has demonstrated the border nature of the city, both in terms of linguistic production and perception, this article examines how individual speakers use different styles in their production of regional identity at the border. Specifically, this study addresses how speakers in Louisville define the area to which Louisville belongs. Using the theoretical notions of enregisterment, iconization, and recursivity, the author shows how these individuals, in recognition of the border, dynamically construct identities that are at the same time Southern and non-Southern, which provides further evidence of the fluid and hybrid nature of identities at the border.
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