Contextualizing language attitudes: An interactional perspective

Language attitudes research has had a history spanning several decades largely influenced by quantitative approaches. More recently, interactional perspectives have added new impetus to the field. This article provides an overview of interactional approaches to language attitudes, which are divided into three main groups: (a) discursive psychology, (b) approaches that draw on conversational analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, and (c) approaches based in the theory of motivated information management. The authors argue that these approaches can instigate new questions and yield new insights into our understanding of language attitudes. In positioning qualitative, largely interactional, approaches with respect to one another (and, briefly, to language attitude study more broadly), this article also re‐evaluates some terminological inconsistencies across the field and touches on areas that ought to be considered in future research addressing language attitudes.