Matched-guise test

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The matched-guise test is a sociolinguistic experimental technique used to determine the true feelings of an individual or community towards a specific language, dialect, or accent. In this technique, human subjects listen to recordings of speakers of two or more language varieties and make judgments about various traits of those speakers, such as body height, good looks, leadership, sense of humor, intelligence, religiousness, self-confidence, dependability, kindness, ambition, sociability, character, and likability (Stefanowitsch 2005). The subjects believe they are hearing different speakers, not realizing that they are actually listening to a single speaker, a bilingual or polyglot, who is secretly performing two or more voices or linguistic personas, known as "guises". Therefore, the subjects end up eliciting their attitudes on different speech varieties as being used (without the subjects' knowledge) by a single speaker.

This experiment was first introduced by Wallace Lambert and his colleagues at McGill University in 1960s to determine attitudes held by bilingual French Canadians towards English and French (Davies & Elder 2004:189, Agheyisi & Fishman, 1970). Since the initial aim of these studies range from the influence of linguistic attitudes on educational and political systems to their influence on workplace environments, Lambert's technique has proven successful in identifying and eliciting certain stereotypes toward particular social groups. The matched-guise technique has been widely used in bicultural settings such as in Quebec, as well as in cross-cultural studies and multi-ethnic societies, and it has been employed not only as an instrument in comparing attitudes toward languages, but also toward variations in dialects and accents. And depending on particular listener, a speaker's accent, speech patterns, vocabulary, intonation, etc., can all serve as markers for evaluating speaker's appearance, personality, social status, and character. Among other things, listeners also possess language attitudes, which they use to evaluate the speakers whom they are hearing.