Vitality Perceptions and Language Attitudes: Some Canadian Data

Abstract

Italian (IC) and English (EC) Canadians, in two school settings, completed the Subjective Vitality Questionnaire (SVQ) and a sociolinguistic questionnaire concerning self-reported usage and evaluations of Italian and English in different domains. SVQ results from the two settings showed that subject perceptions do not necessarily match objective assessments of ethnolinguistic vitality. Both ECs and ICs had more realistic perceptions in a majority setting (study 2) than in an equal setting (study 1). Whereas in both studies, self reports of language usage reflected the dominance of the English language in Hamilton, ECs were more biased against Italian language usage in study 1 than in study 2. Setting and subjective vitality perceptions seemed to affect evaluations of language use rather than self-reported usage. These results show that the SVQ and sociolinguistic surveys, in combination, can prove to be powerful instruments in studying the dynamics of ethnic group perceptions and language attitudes in multilingual settings.