A cluster analysis of attitudes to English in Germany and the Netherlands

Abstract

Although English is becoming increasingly entrenched in Western Europe, large‐scale comparative studies of attitudes among the general public to this development are scarce. We investigate over 4,000 Dutch and Germans’ attitudes towards English based on responses to an attitudinal questionnaire. Respondents saw English as a useful additional language, but not generally as a threat to their national language. Using k‐means, an unsupervised clustering algorithm, we identified two attitudinal groups per country. Respondents with positive attitudes towards English, regardless of nationality, tended to be younger, urban, better educated and more proficient in English than their compatriots with more negative views of English. These within‐country differences outweighed between‐country ones, for example, that Germans were more confident in the status of their L1, whereas Dutch showed signs of ‘English fatigue’. The findings thus appear to confirm the previously identified divide between elite ‘haves’ versus ‘have‐nots’ of English.

English in Dutch‐speaking Europe: Features, competence, domains and status

“…Figures for other languages are much lower. Edwards (2016) and Edwards and Fuchs (2018) show, however, with large‐scale questionnaire studies that two groups have to be distinguished in the Netherlands: a group with a positive attitude towards English and a (much smaller) group with a negative attitude towards English. The former, consisting of younger higher educated urban Dutch residents, likes using English, uses it frequently, considers proficiency in English a benefit on the job market and sees it as an enrichment to their mother tongue, Dutch.…”

“…The group with a negative attitude towards English is older, less educated, lives in rural areas and has a lower proficiency in English. According to Edward and Fuchs (2018), people belonging to the latter group in particular would protest against the use of English in education and organisations, and against the penetration of English loanwords into Dutch. They would be the members of Dutch associations that protest against Anglicisation, such as Ampzing Genootschap (Ampzing Society) and Stichting Taalverdediging voor behoud en herstel van het Nederlands (Language Defense Foundation for the Preservation and Restoration of Dutch).…”

Language-dependent emotions in heritage and second language bilinguals: When physiological reactions deviate from feelings

“…Yet, at the conscious rating level, language differences may disappear because language and emotion processing are sensitive to time and attention regulation (Opitz & Degner, 2012;Thoma, 2021). It is difficult to say if frame-switching induces automatic emotional reactions, but the theory certainly allows for language-dependent feelings because any language can trigger different attitudes and expectations (e.g., Edwards & Fuchs, 2018;Nederstigt & Hilberink-Schulpen, 2018). In sum, at least context and processing theory jointly lead to hypothesis H1: H1: Balanced simultaneous bilinguals are less sensitive in their automatic pupillary reactions when exposed to a German versus Lx emotional stimulus than unbalanced sequential bilinguals are.…”

Quebec-based Parents’ Attitudes Towards Childhood Multilingualism: Evaluative Dimensions and Potential Predictors

“…Previous studies have shown that attitudes towards individual languages influence a wide range of linguistic behaviors, including what languages people decide to learn (e.g., Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993 ), the frequency with which they use their languages (e.g., Edwards & Fuchs, 2018 ), and whether they transmit these languages to their children (e.g., Kircher, 2019 ; for a more detailed overview of the consequences of language attitudes, see Dragojevic et al, 2021 ).…”