GA and RP accents in a verbal guise test: A questionnaire-based study of Swedish upper secondary school students’ language attitudes

Abstract: The aim of this study is to use a verbal guise test to investigate Swedish upper secondary school students’ language attitudes toward GA and RP. While research has been conducted on this topic before, few studies have incorporated all three cognitive, affective and conative components of the mentalist approach to language attitude, and even fewer with younger student participants, which are two components the present study included. The findings of the present study indicate differences in evaluation of the RP and GA speakers. The investigated L2 speakers of English, the 17-19 year old participants, favoured the RP speaker in terms of the cognitive categories serious, intelligent and responsible, while the GA speaker was evaluated more favorably for the categories not arrogant, kind, calm and gentle. The participants also felt more trust while listening to the RP speaker, while other affective categories did not generate considerable differences in evaluation of the speakers. Lastly, in the conative component, the students self-reported using and aiming for similar pronunciation to GA rather than RP. Several of these results are supported by previous research, but contrasting findings occur as well.