Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics (Cognitive Linguistic Research)

(Dana P.) #1
Lectal acquisition and linguistic stereotype formation 235

Table 4. Global results of Experiment 1 across age groups: percentages of correct
answers per age group and autonomous community


No. correct answers/age: community Total
0 1 2 3 4 5
Age 6-7 19 16 8 5 2 0 50
38.0% 32.0% 16.0% 10.0% 4.0% .0% 100.0%
8-9 10 12 10 9 5 4 50
20.0% 24.0% 20.0% 18.0% 10.0% 8.0% 100.0%
12-13 1 5 15 10 10 9 50
2.0% 10.0% 30.0% 20.0% 20.0% 18.0% 100.0%
Total
30 33 33 24 17 13 150
20.0% 22.0% 22.0% 16.0% 11.3% 8.7% 100.0%

Let us now, in Table 5, cast a glance at a series of tables that aim to capture
these various dimensions in terms of a global overview. The first column
enlists age groups and the eight accents (where e.g. Andalucía 1 and Anda-
lucía 2 represent the two tokens per type). The next three columns reflect
cumulative percentages of correct answers per area, autonomous communi-
ty and province. The results are cumulative because the scores of province
are included in the scores of community and these in the results for area: if
a child responded correctly at the level of province we assume that the wid-
er levels of community and area were correctly identified, too.
The last three columns show the various levels of statistical significance
(analyses based on Chi-squares): the results that proved to be positively
significant for the 6-7 year-olds are marked in bold. (Results that on first
sight are identical to the ones marked in bold were also statistically signifi-
cant, but in the negative sense: the scores were unusually low and thus
stood out in a sense that on the other hand is still relevant for the purposes
of the present study. When an accent rates very low on awareness we are
obviously still interested in the processes behind such a lack of knowledge
or attention. In this paper, however, we shall concentrate on the results that
pertain to a high degree of awareness.) Let us first of all observe that type-
token correspondences are respected: when Andalucía 1 is identified at
levels above chance, so is Andalucía 2, and as we shall see in the next two
tables, the type/token relationship is systematic for all three age groups.
This is not a result without importance: it indicates that identification was
not a random affair, but that patterns (or more technically speaking linguis-

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