Accent and Social Class Effects on Status and Solidarity Evaluations

Male speakers of either standard British or standard American English were presented to 60 American undergraduates as either lower-class or middle-class individuals. Speakers were rated on social status, solidarity, and speech. Moreover, respondents made causal attributions for the speakers' hypothetical successes and failures. British speakers were upgraded on status as were middle-class persons whereas main effects in the opposite direction emerged on the solidarity dimension. Causal attributions in status-stressing and solidarity-stressing situations were generally consistent with the other evaluations, with larger effects for class than for accent. Predicted interactions between accent and social class did not occur.