Beliefs and attitudes of the mallorcan university students towards the educated varieties of spanish

Authors

  • Beatriz Méndez Guerrero Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Abstract

t is very important for sociolinguistics to know the social assessment that speakers of the language make because it is known that the perceptions of the speakers clearly affect their linguistic behavior and indicate where the language will be addressed in the years (López Morales 1989; Blas Arroyo 1999; Moreno 2009). The PRECAVES-XXI project (Cestero and Paredes 2015a and 2015b), aware of this, to analyze the attitudes towards the varieties of Spanish that the Spanish speakers.In this work we analyze the beliefs and attitudes manifested in the Mallorcan people towards the normative varieties of Spanish and their own variety. Specifically, it explains what variety or varieties consider the most important and most prestigious subjects, what perception they have of their own variety, attending to the affective and cognitive factors, and what identification and assessment they make of the rest of the varieties of Spanish. The results of the study suggest that informants evaluate each of the varieties of Spanish differently; which considers that a more prestigious variety exists; and that identifies, at least partially, the different varieties to one’s own.

Keywords:

Linguistic beliefs, linguistic attitudes, varieties of Spanish, PRECAVES XXI, social identity, Spanish of Mallorca