Part I The Background Information Section of the Participants

This section aims to discuss how the Background Information questions of the research questionnaire were formed and the justifications for selecting each of the social variables under investigation.

3.3.1.1 The Rationale of the Background Information Section

The reasoning behind the background information section was to acquire socio- demographical information about the research participants. By doing this, it helped the researcher to understand the composition of the Taiwanese and British research population. Moreover, the background information section enabled the researcher to select the social variables of the informants in order to test the correlation between listeners’ background information (e.g., gender) and language attitudes. In view of the fact that the evaluators’ social factors, including gender and occupation, are likely to play a part in governing attitudes, the section also requested additional personal information such as nationality and regional membership (e.g., Lambert et al., 1960; Giles, 1970; Callan, 1983; Coupland and Bishop, 2007).

3.3.1.2 The Research Sample

The compositions of the samples of the Taiwanese and British research participants are presented in Table 3.1 and Table 3.2 respectively. While prospective Taiwanese respondents were approached through the online survey during the period of twelve weeks from the 10th _{of June 2013 to the 10}th _of

September 2013, potential British informants were accessed via the online survey in the six weeks’ duration from the 18th of August 2014 to the 30th of September 2014 (see the discussion of the research questionnaire presented in the form of the online survey in Section 3.4). Both groups of potential Taiwanese and British respondents were recruited via advertisement on a friend-of-a-friend basis (Milroy, 1980). By the end of the data collection period, 317 questionnaires were completed by Taiwanese respondents and 147 were completed by British

respondents. The Taiwanese and British online surveys were closed to avoid receiving further responses in order to keep the data at the manageable scope (e.g., Dewaele and McCloskey, 2015). It was ensured that the Taiwanese sample consisted only of respondents of Taiwanese nationality, who speak Mandarin as the first language, and were born and raised in Taiwan. For the British sample, the research participants were British citizens who speak English as the mother tongue and were born and raised in the UK. It should be noted, however, that the final research sample of 317 Taiwanese and 147 British participants does not include the respondents who were invited to take part in the preliminary pilot studies.

3.3.1.3 The Selection of Social Variables of the Participants

This section addresses how the social variables of the research participants were selected. Following common practice (e.g., Baker, 1992; Starks and Paltridge, 1996; McKenzie, 2010; Zhang, 2010), this study endeavoured to choose social variables that are culturally relevant and socially bound to the respective groups of Taiwanese and British participants. The social characteristics chosen for the Taiwanese research sample are (1) gender (2) occupation (3) self-perceived English level and for the British research sample are (1) gender (2) occupation (3) self-perceived accent level. The rationale for selecting each of the social variables is as follows.

Table 3.1 The Composition of the Taiwanese Sample (N=317) (Number shown in bracket)

Total Number of Taiwanese Participants (317)

Gender Male (117) Female (200)

Age 18-23 (130) 24-29 (125) 30 and above (62) Regional Origin North Region of Taiwan (167) Middle Region of Taiwan (40) South Region of Taiwan (83) East Region of Taiwan (3) The Surrounding Islands 19 ₍₂₄₎ Length of learning English from Non-

native Speaking Teachers

Less than 10 years (182) More than 10 years (135)

Length of learning English from Native

Speaking Teachers

Less than 3 years (201) More than 3 years (116)

19 The surrounding islands of Taiwan, which include Penghu County, Kinmen County, Lienchiang

Table 3.2 The Composition of the British Sample (N=147) (Number shown in bracket)

Total Number of British Participants (147)

Gender Male (34) Female (113)

Age 18-27 (60) 28-37 (36) 38 and above (51)

Regional

Origin England (10) Channel Islands (35) Northern Ireland (7) Scotland (93) Wales (2)

Gender: In response to the discussion in section 2.7.1, which showed that the evaluators’ gender was a salient factor in language attitudes variation (e.g., McKenzie, 2008a; Coupland and Bishop, 2007; Moloney, 2009; Sykes, 2010), it is critical to examine whether the Taiwanese and British respondents’ gender differences affect their evaluation towards varieties of English. Although the variable of British participants’ gender has been examined in previous research (e.g., Giles, 1970; Coupland and Bishop, 2007), this study is of particular value in gathering data regarding the role of the Taiwanese informants’ gender in their perceptions of different English varieties.

Occupation: In light of the argument that different sectors of the research population might not share the same attitudes towards varieties of English (e.g., Chambers, 1995; Garrett et al., 1999), this study categorised the participants according to the occupations of students and workers (non-students) to perceive them as representing two distinctive social groups with different social networks and ways of life. The other reason for categorising them by occupation is the scant number of studies which have considered the variable of profession in mediating language attitudes. To collect attitudinal data towards varieties of English from university-level students is advantageous since this social group is often the one most likely to volunteer in language attitude research and tends to have most exposure towards a wide range of spoken English (e.g., McKenzie, 2010; Zhang, 2010). Nevertheless, it is invaluable to consider not only the student population but also people of other occupational sectors. The finding of the present helps to illustrate whether or not the research participants’ viewpoints towards varieties of English differ according to whether they are students or employed workers.

Self-Perceived English Level: Self-perceived English level can be defined as “a reflection of the individuals’ perception of his/her competence” in English (Dewaele, 2005: 124). This variable is examined only among Taiwanese participants who are EFL speakers. Given that NNSs’ attitudes towards English are linked to the success of language acquisition (e.g., Gardner, 1985; Starks and Paltridge, 1996:218; Csizer and Dornyei, 2005), it is speculated that the Taiwanese respondents’ self-perceived English level might influence how they evaluate different English accents. Therefore, it is imperative to inspect whether the Taiwanese participants’ perceptions of their English proficiency influence their attitudes towards different English accents.

Self-Perceived Accent Level: Studies of British people’s language attitudes have consistently shown that standard variety of British English such as RP is often perceived with high social prestige (e.g., Giles, 1970; Milroy and McClenaghan, 1977; Hiraga, 2005; Coupland and Bishop, 2007), while regional varieties of British English, such as those spoken in Scotland and Yorkshire, are more likely to be recognised as having high social attractiveness (e.g., Strongman and Woosley, 1967; Cheyne, 1970). The study of Cheyne (1970) demonstrated that when Glaswegian participants who are speakers of a regional dialect are asked to evaluate different regional accents of Britain, they tend to perceive the speaker with the local Scottish accent particularly positively on the solidarity continuum. The important implication of Cheyne’s (1970) finding is that if someone is the speaker of regional British English him/herself, he/she is likely to prefer regionally accented varieties, especially on the account of speaker solidarity. Based on this point, the variable of the British respondents’ self-perceived accents will allow me to examine how NSs in the UK consider the level of their own accent, and how it affects their attitudes towards varieties of English. For this reason, the British respondents were asked to select from the choices of “no accent”, “slightly accented”, “moderately accented” and “heavily accented” when answering the question of “how do you perceive your own English accent?” in the background information section of the British main questionnaire (see Appendix B).

This methodological design results in greater validity when interpreting the Taiwanese and British participants’ attitudes variations, taking into account the demographical diversity of the two research populations. Although it would be

desirable to examine a larger set of evaluators’ social variables, this study will focus on the above factors so that the responses collected from each group of Taiwanese and British respondents are within the scope of the research (see Section 3.3.1.3). The two social variables of gender and occupation are kept consistent between the two research groups to provide comparability. The variables of self-perceived English level and self-perceived accent level are chosen to cater respectively for the Taiwanese participants as NNSs and the British respondents as NSs. Consequently, the Background Information section of the Taiwanese and British research questionnaires is composed of different sets of questions (see Appendix A and B).