Attitudes to accents in English: a Pacific study

Abstract

The article reports on a study about the attitudes towards four accents in English of 156 students from Fiji and other Pacific nations for whom English is a second language. The respondents listened to gender pairs of speakers of middle-of-the-road varieties of
Australian, New Zealand, North American, and English English, then rated them on 18 personality and voice traits, and tried to identify their nationality and socio-economic background.

Results indicate that the North American accent is the best recognized, followed by
the Australasian, and there are differences in accuracy of identification between Indo-Fijians and Fijians. The American female leads in solidarity, competence, and most power traits, followed by the American male, while the Australian male leads in status
traits. Female speakers are downgraded for status traits. The traditional external standard of the region, English English, is being replaced as the prestige variety, reflecting historical changes in geopolitical influence.