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Speech Norms and Attitudes Toward Outgroup Members: A Test of a Model in a Bicultural Context

University of Illinois at Chicago

Else V. Hamayan

Illinois Resource Center, Arlington Heights, Illinois

It was hypothesised that the effect of outgroup members' speech style on attitudes toward them varies according to observers' norms for ingroup vs. outgroup speech. Further, ethnocentrism and exposure to outgroup members were not only expected to affect attitudes directly, but to control speech norms, which themselves underlie intergroup perceptions. This may be particularly important in bicultural contexts where increased exposure to outgroup members makes speech style crucial to attitude formation. Language norms, ethnocentrism, attitudes toward Hispanics and Spanish language, and exposure to Hispanics were measured among 13-year-old Anglophone students in a school containing a Spanish bilingual programme. Subjects responded to speech samples containing Standard English, and syntactic, phonemic and lexical intrusions from Spanish. These varieties had differential effects on normative judgements and evaluations of the speaker. Further, measures of speech norms were shown to have adequate internal and test-retest reliability. More ethnocentric subjects and, in particular, those with less contact with Hispanics showed negative attitudes towards Hispanics generally, and toward the speakers specifically. These relationships were partially mediated by speech norms, although both intergroup contact and speech norms made significant independent contributions to the prediction of outgroup attitudes. Thus, individual differences in speech norms are important to understanding the effect of speech on intergroup attitudes.

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