English Language Center, Institute of Public Administration, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Second Language Studies, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Moore Hall 570, 1890 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA.
J Psycholinguist Res. 2023 Jun;52(3):809-829. doi: 10.1007/s10936-022-09925-0. Epub 2022 Dec 24.
This article reports on the first study to investigate Saudis' attitudes toward Saudi English (SauE). To situate Saudi speakers' attitudes within the sociolinguistic ecology of language use, this study invited 80 Saudi participants to respond to an audio stimulus featuring Indian English alongside SauE in an attempt to more realistically depict the use of English use in Saudi Arabia. This task was carried out using an Interactive Verbal Guise Technique (IVGT), an innovative approach in which listeners evaluate English varieties as they are used in a naturally occurring interaction. To supplement this indirect method, participants were asked to fill out an attitude questionnaire consisting of closed-ended and open-ended questions. The findings of the IVGT showed that participants rated the Saudi speaker highly in both power and solidarity scales. The responses on the attitude questionnaire also revealed expressions of ownership and legitimacy of SauE. By decentering inner-circle Englishes in the study of language attitudes, the results of this study suggest that ecologically valid studies of language attitudes can yield results which express ownership in local varieties of English.
本文报告了第一项调查沙特人对沙特英语（SauE）态度的研究。为了使沙特人对英语的态度在语言使用的社会语言学环境中得到定位，本研究邀请了 80 名沙特参与者对一段包含印度英语和 SauE 的音频刺激做出反应，试图更真实地描绘沙特阿拉伯英语使用情况。这项任务是通过一种交互式言语掩饰技术（IVGT）完成的，这是一种创新的方法，听众在自然发生的互动中评估英语变体的使用情况。为了补充这种间接方法，参与者被要求填写一份由封闭式和开放式问题组成的态度问卷。IVGT 的调查结果表明，参与者在权力和团结量表上对沙特演讲者的评价都很高。态度问卷的回答也表达了对 SauE 的所有权和合法性。通过在语言态度研究中使内圈英语非中心化，本研究的结果表明，对语言态度的生态有效研究可以产生对当地英语变体的所有权的表达。
