Welcome to Language Latitudes: Expanding our understanding of language attitudes
What are ‘language attitudes’?
Language attitudes are the attitudes, feelings, judgements, biases, and beliefs people hold about language and the ways people speak.
For example, this can include beliefs that some languages or accents are “better” than others, or the assumption that someone is more or less educated based on how they speak.
Negative language attitudes can lead to language discrimination
Language discrimination is unfair treatment based on how a person speaks. This can include the language(s) they speak, the accent they use, or simply the way they talk.
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language by an individual speaker or a group of speakers.
Social opportunities
Social opportunities are chances for people to improve their lives.
For example: job offers, access to education, and access to medical care.
Our project
The Language Latitudes Project aims to challenge language biases by promoting positive attitudes around language diversity and multilingualism and increasing awareness of language attitudes and their social consequences.
The Language Latitudes Project has three main goals:
To initiate discussion of language attitudes, and how language attitudes have social impacts.
To celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
To connect researchers interested in language attitudes and share research with the public.
The Language Latitudes Project is supported in part by funding from:
