Since languages are such powerful means of group identification, they may be considered as constitutive of communities. Attitudes expressed toward certain linguistic varieties may thus be perceived as attitudes held toward respective community-members. However, as attitudes are not always easily accessible, and are rarely one-dimensional but rather multi-layered, an insight into overt (publicly...

This article examines popular beliefs about language in Britain and the United States within a language ideology framework. With particular reference to Silverstein's discussion of second-order indexicality, it argues that language varieties in Britain and the United States are differently ideologized in such a way as to foreground social class groups in Britain and ethnic groups in the United ...

The current research examines the extent to which individuals endorse “sexblind” versus “sexaware” ideologies. Analogous to colorblind and multicultural ideologies, sexblindness involves ignoring sex categorization when perceiving others, and sexawareness involves recognizing and celebrating sex differences. Results revealed that participants endorsed sexblindness more (and, thus, sexawareness ...

Linguistic variations such as dialects are natural part of human language. When a language is taught in a classroom, one version tends to be represented. This is especially true of commonly taught languages as they have a representative or standard variation that has a long history of being taught as first and second languages. Issues regarding language-instruction and learning become complicat...