Attitudes of Japanese nationals towards standard and non- standard varieties of Scottish English speech

In Japan, English language learners, educators and policy makers have tended to depend upon Standard British and Standard American varieties of English to provide models of linguistic norms. This paper investigates the perceptions of 32 Japanese nationals resident in either Scotland or Japan of two varieties of English speech (Scottish Standard English speech and the non-standard Glasgow vernacular speech), according to gender and familiarity with the variety. The experiment employed both direct and indirect techniques of language attitude
measurement. The results obtained suggest that although there appears to be a general tolerance amongst the informants for both the standard and non-standard varieties of Scottish English speech selected, attitudes were significantly more favourable towards the Scottish Standard English form. However, gender and familiarity with the speech variety were not found to be significant variables in determining the language attitudes of the informants. The findings are discussed in relation to the pedagogical and language planning implications for the choice of linguistic model in English language teaching both within and without Japan and in terms of the potential direction of future attitudinal research in this area.