Own Variety Bias.

Area of Science:

• Sociolinguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Language Variation and Change

Background:

• Language identification is crucial for understanding sociolinguistic perception.
• Regional dialects can influence how speakers perceive their own language.
• Previous research suggests a tendency for speakers to favor their own dialect.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether native speakers of Belgian French and Swiss French exhibit in-group bias when identifying French varieties.
• To determine if Canadian French speakers show similar biases.
• To explore the influence of geographical and cultural proximity on language identification.

Main Methods:

• Participants included native speakers of Belgian French, Swiss French, and Canadian French.
• A language identification task was employed, presenting listeners with audio clips of different French varieties.
• Listeners were asked to identify the origin of the spoken French and whether it sounded like their own variety.

Main Results:

• Belgian French and Swiss French speakers predominantly identified French from France as their own variety, indicating a strong in-group bias towards the standard.
• Canadian French speakers did not exhibit this bias, accurately identifying French from France and not claiming it as their own.
• Listeners of Canadian French also did not claim other varieties as their own, suggesting a different pattern of dialect perception.

Conclusions:

• Native speakers of European French varieties show a bias towards identifying with the standard French from France.
• This in-group bias is not observed in Canadian French speakers, suggesting distinct sociolinguistic perceptions.
• Geographical distance and distinct linguistic features may contribute to the lack of bias in Canadian French listeners.