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“ A ttitudes To wards L anguages” (AToL) Scale

2012; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0261927x12457922

1552-6526

Christiane Schoel, Janin Roessel, Jennifer Eck, Jana Janßen, Branislava Petrovic, Astrid Rothe, Selma C. Rudert, Dagmar Stahlberg,

Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity

Language attitudes may be differentiated into attitudes towards speakers and attitudes towards languages. However, to date, no systematic and differentiated instrument exists that measures attitudes towards language. Accordingly, we developed, validated, and applied the Attitudes Towards Languages (AToL) scale in four studies. In Study 1, we selected 15 items for the AToL scale, which represented the three dimensions of value, sound, and structure. The following studies replicated and validated the three-factor structure and differential mean profiles along the three dimensions for different languages (a) in a more diverse German sample (Study 2), (b) in different countries (Study 3), and (c) when participants based their evaluations on speech samples (Study 4). Moreover, we investigated the relation between the AToL dimensions and stereotypic speaker evaluations. Results confirm the reliability, validity, and generalizability of the AToL scale and its incremental value to mere speaker evaluations.