Effects of imitation on language attitudes associated with regional and standard accents of British English

This study investigated whether and how imitation of sentences spoken in Liverpool English (LE) and Standard Southern British English (SSBE), affected attitudes related to these accents. LE has low prestige and low social attractiveness, while SSBE has high prestige and high attractiveness. A previous study showed that imitation positively affects social attractiveness, but not prestige, for an accent with low attractiveness and low prestige. It is unclear how imitation affects attitudes for accents with high attractiveness and high prestige. For both accents, participants repeated or imitated sentences. They gave prestige and attractiveness ratings for either accent at three points: before the experiment (baseline, before participants had heard the accent) and after each repeat/imitation session. A positive effect of imitation on attractiveness was found for LE, but not for SSBE. Also, an effect of audio exposure is reported: ratings were less stereotypical after listening to sentences spoken in the accent.