The Study of Language Attitudes

High school students from Jerusalem participating an intensive survey of lang uage attitude, usage, and proficiency, revealed very favorable attitudes toward English. They thought it suitable for more uses than any of the other languages they were asked about, cluding Hebrew, and their subjective evaluations of English, terms of adjectives such as beautiful, musical, and rich, were higher than those for Hebrew and second only to those for French, from which they differed only slightly. Furthermore, they considered English as important as Hebrew as a means toward valued goals. Students most frequently chose reasons as being among the most impor tant ones for learning English. While endorsements of such reasons were not associated with proficiency and usage, means-end measures were the only language attitude items to show a consistent relationship to English proficiency and usage. The current Israeli educational system provides a useful context for the study of language attitudes, particularly with respect to English. That language is a required subject for all stu dents from the fifth grade onwards. A compulsory subject on the secondary school matriculation examination, it is an important part of the school curriculum. At university, it is the medium for a substantial portion of the students' reading lists, and knowledge of the language is set as a requirement for university graduation. Bound up with academic incentives to learn English are economic ones, both direct and indirect. Direct incentives exist where knowledge of Eng lish is an explicit job requirement, as is often the case (see Cooper and Seckback, press). In direct incentives exist to the extent that the training or educational level required for particular jobs demands a knowledge of English. One can expect, therefore, that Israeli students will have material, or Gardner and Lambert's (1972) terms, instrumental incentives for learning English. One might also expect that Israeli students will have what Gardner and Lambert call in tegrative reasons for learning English. Many Israelis have relatives abroad and many are con cerned about Israel's position international opinion. To the extent that Israeli students want to communicate with and understand the points of view of persons from abroad, an integrative orientation toward English, an international lingua franca par excellence, can be expected. To what extent are Israeli students motivated by considerations to learn English and to what extent by integrative considerations? Do students with an integrative orientation tend to learn English better than students with an orientation? Gard ner and Lambert's work suggests that second-language proficiency is more often related to an integrative orientation than to an one, although the correlations obtained be tween motivational orientation and second-language achievement are typically low. Israel, however, contrasts with most other contexts which the relationship between second-language learning and motivation has been studied that the tiny size of its population, its ties to a diaspora, and the inutility of its principal language as a medium of international communica tion present a relatively strong case for an additional language as the language of wider com munication, both for and for integrative purposes. What attitudes do Israeli students have towart? native speakers of English, and do these This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:25:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 8 COOPER AND FISHMAN attitudes make any difference with respect to their acquisition of English? Macnamara (1973), pointing to the typically low correlations obtained between second-language achievement scores and learners' attitudes toward native speakers of the target language, argues that a language often spreads among people who actively dislike its native speakers. Citing among several examples the spread of English Ireland, he believes that if people need to learn a language they will do so regardless of their attitudes towards its native speakers. Will this be found Israel as well? Most research on the relationship betwen language attitude and second-language achieve ment has concentrated on the motivational aspects of language attitude or on the attitudes toward native speakers of the target language. Students may, however, harbor positive or negative feelings about the target language itself. To what extent do Israeli students like Eng lish? Do they evaluate it positively? Do students who give more positive evaluations with re spect to the attributes of English also tend to have greater English proficiency? Language attitude is sometimes studied its own right and sometimes connection with its relationship to language behavior. The language behavior which is most frequently studied connection with language attitude is language proficiency. One can also ask, however, to what extent attitude is related to usage of the target language. Israeli students have many op portunities to use English outside the classroom. They can, for example, use it with visitors from abroad and with immigrants who speak English natively; they can read English-language publications, and they can listen to radio broadcasts English. In addition, of course, a sub stantial portion of their television viewing, movie fare, and pop songs are English. Do Israeli students with more positive feelings toward English or toward native speakers of English tend to use it more than students with less positive feelings? Do students with one type of motivational orientation tend to use English more than students with another type of motiva tional orientation? The research reported this paper was addressed both to theoretical questions about the nature of attitude and attitude measurement and to substantive questions about Israeli high school students' attitudes toward English. Some of the theoretical questions which motivated the research are enumerated Cooper and Fishman (1974). The substantive questions are as follows: 1. What reasons for learning English do students consider important? 2. To what extent do students have positive feelings about the English language? 3. For what uses and contexts do students think English is particularly well suited? 4. How do students feel about native speakers of English, particular American immigrants to Israel? 5. Do students' feelings about English differ from their feelings toward other immigrant languages? 6. Do students' feelings about Americans differ from their feelings about other immigrant groups? 7. To what extent are students' language attitudes related to their English proficiency? 8. To what extent are students' language attitudes related to the frequency of their English usage outside the classroom? Answers to these questions were sought cooperation with 65 students enrolled second ary schools Jerusalem during the spring of 1973.