Attitudes to Spanish language variation. A study on Portuguese students of Spanish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Drawing on data collected via a web-based survey, this study investigates the attitudes of SFL (Spanish as a Foreign Language) learners in Portugal towards four Spanish varieties. A verbal guise experiment was designed to collect students’ perceptions of language variation. The sample comprised 196 undergraduate students from the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon (Portugal). The results show that Portuguese students of SFL have a clear preference for the Castilian variety, as it obtained the highest rates in all domains (power, personal qualities, and status). Unexpectedly, factors such as participants’ age or sex did not influence the answers given.