ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 begins with a historical discussion of the attitude construct. It critically evaluates important attitude theories and empirical evidence from prior attitude studies within the fields of social psychology and social cognition that are of direct relevance to sociolinguistics and other areas of the language sciences. The chapter then examines the nature of, and the relationship between, implicit and explicit attitudes and existing attitudinal measures and considers the evidence for implicit-explicit attitudinal discrepancy (IED) as indicative of attitude change. The chapter continues with an in-depth critique of indirect, direct and implicit approaches to the measurement of language attitudes and details the findings of major studies employing these approaches. There follows an examination of the wider social and educational implications of language-based discrimination. The theoretical and methodological importance of investigating language attitudes and language attitude change for (socio)linguistics is also detailed. Finally, the chapter critically reviews the main findings of important explicit and implicit language attitude studies conducted in England and highlights the need for further in-depth research to be conducted which focuses specifically upon the implicit and explicit evaluations of English nationals towards Northern English and Southern English speech.
