TY - JOUR

T1 - Modelling language attitudes: Attitudinal measurements and linguistic behaviour in two bilingual communities

AU - Tamburelli, Marco

AU - Gruffydd, Ianto

AU - Breit, Florian

AU - Brasca, Lissander

PY - 2025/1/7

Y1 - 2025/1/7

N2 - This paper investigates whether attitudinal measures can predict usage in two bilingual communities with radically different language policies. We compare 163 participants’ (ages 24–36) rates of spontaneous language usage to two attitudinal measures among Welsh—English and Lombard—Italian bilinguals. Usage rates are found to correlate with Matched Guise Technique status scores for Lombard and to predict solidarity scores for Welsh. A different picture emerges from the Implicit Association Test, with scores correlating with usage for Welsh but not for Lombard. We link these findings to the radically different levels of socio-political support associated with the regional/minority languages and the nature of the two attitudinal measures. Our findings suggest that the utility of different attitudinal measures depends partly on socio-political circumstances and on the type of association intrinsically addressed in each measure. These have important implications for both the study of language attitudes and research on language vitality.

AB - This paper investigates whether attitudinal measures can predict usage in two bilingual communities with radically different language policies. We compare 163 participants’ (ages 24–36) rates of spontaneous language usage to two attitudinal measures among Welsh—English and Lombard—Italian bilinguals. Usage rates are found to correlate with Matched Guise Technique status scores for Lombard and to predict solidarity scores for Welsh. A different picture emerges from the Implicit Association Test, with scores correlating with usage for Welsh but not for Lombard. We link these findings to the radically different levels of socio-political support associated with the regional/minority languages and the nature of the two attitudinal measures. Our findings suggest that the utility of different attitudinal measures depends partly on socio-political circumstances and on the type of association intrinsically addressed in each measure. These have important implications for both the study of language attitudes and research on language vitality.

KW - language attitudes

KW - language vitality

KW - Minority Languages

KW - implicit attitudes

KW - linguistic behaviour

KW - implicit vs explicit attitudes

M3 - Article

JO - Journal of Language and Social Psychology

JF - Journal of Language and Social Psychology

SN - 0261-927X

ER -