O poder explicativo e predictivo das actitudes lingüísticas

Abstract

When studying the influence of attitudes on behaviour in an empirical way, many studies reveal that the influence is weaker than expected. This has led some researchers to reject the attitude concept on the ground of its scant usefulness for explaining conduct. From a different perspective, however, efforts have been devoted to ascertaining the possible reasons for this disagreement. In this article we try to point out some of them. We focus our attention on studies on language attitudes, i.e., on Sociolinguistics, a discipline that, with a few exceptions, has not paid enough attention to the question of attitude-behaviour relations, either from the theoretical or the methodological point of view. We divide our reflections into three points. First, we analyse the incidence of other factors, in addition to attitude factors, on behaviour, starting from the different theories proposed in the domain of Social Psychology. Next we set out the methodological problems of the use of questionnaires as instruments for measuring attitudes, which is one of the commonest methods, We also suggest several strategies for suitably operationalising attitude concepts. Finally, we show an example of the application of this methodology, with the help of a study on attitudes towards the Galician language carried out by the City Council of Vigo. Furthermore, in the introduction to the article we present some of the most controversial attitude-related concepts

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