Evaluations of Middle Class and Lower Class Speakers of Standard American and German-Accented English

Male speakers (aged 45-60) of either standard or German-accented American English were presented to middle class Anglo-American undergraduates as individuals belonging to either the lower or middle class. The respondents rated speakers on status, solidarity, and speech dimensions and also completed social distance and belief similarity items. The nonstandard speech style affected listener evaluations negatively on all measures while social class only affected status and speech intelligibility ratings. The lack of predicted interactions indicated that individuals speaking with a German accent were neither more strongly downgraded in the lower class condition nor upgraded in the middle class condition.