African immigrants' attitudes toward African American Language/English (AAL/AAE)

This study analyzed language attitudes of twenty-four African immigrants in the USA from West (WA), East (EA) and South Africa (SA) toward African American Language (AAL), a.k.a. African American English (AAE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Black Language, and US Ebonics. The study adapted the use of twelve stimulus voices to help elicit responses from the 24 respondents, using the matched-guise technique; a procedure commonly used in language attitude studies and that was originally developed by Lambert (1960) and Lambert & Tucker (1972). This quantitative research methodology has not been widely used in attitude studies of languages of African ancestry, neither in Africa nor in the African Diaspora.;A female and male African American read three selected passages in African American Language (AAL) and then code-switched into Standard American English (SAE) or the Language of Wider Communication (LWC). The raters evaluated the twelve stimulus voices on twelve traits/characteristics using a seven-point Semantic Differential Scale.;Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), analysis involved Ratings and Rankings of the Mean Scores, Correlation Coefficient and Factor Analysis for each of the twenty-four evaluators on each of the twelve adjectives on the Semantic Differential Scale. While no significant differences were found in perceptions of the language varieties based on the African immigrants' age, gender and years spent in the USA, language attitudes based whether they come from WA, EA and SA were significant among the 24 raters.;The 24 evaluators perceived the 12 stimulus voices as either negative or unfavorable when the language varieties sounded "Egocentric," "Patronizing" and "Proud." By contrast, the respondents used attributes such as "Charming," "Dependable," "Sociable," and "Humble" when they had positive or favorable perceptions toward a language variety. Using Factor Analysis, raters from WA and SA were found to perceive AAL as more "Egocentric" than SAE. EA raters, however, perceived SAE as more "Egocentric" than AAL. All 24 raters identified AAL as more "Patronizing," "Charming" "Proud," and "Dependable." Both EA and SA raters perceived AAL to be more "Sociable" and "Humble." The EA raters viewed the SAEM variety as more "Egocentric" and thus less favorably than AAL but also rated its SAEF counterpart more positively, followed by AALM, AALF, and SAEM voices. Ultimately while WA raters described the African American Language female (AALF) and the African American Language Male (AALM) voices more favorably than either the Standard American English male (SAEM) or female (SAEF) voices, both SA and EA raters, who have a shared history of large European settlements in their regions, expressed preference for the four voice varieties in the same order, namely, SAEF, AALM, AALF and SAEM.;Findings of this language attitude study suggest that perceptions of African immigrants in the US toward AAL and African American Culture have larger implications for how Africans view African Americans in particular and US culture in general.