Language attitudes are the evaluative judgments speakers make about linguistic varieties and their users, while language ideologies are the broader belief systems that naturalize these judgments as common sense. Standard language ideology holds that one particular variety of a language is inherently correct, logical, and proper, obscuring the fact that standard varieties achieved their status through political and institutional processes rather than linguistic superiority. These ideologies have real consequences: linguistic discrimination (linguicism) affects speakers of non-prestige varieties in education, employment, housing, and the justice system. The distinction between overt prestige (associated with standard/formal varieties) and covert prestige (associated with in-group solidarity and vernacular identity) reveals that speakers simultaneously orient toward competing evaluative frameworks.
Take the matched-guise test approach — listen to the same speaker using different varieties and notice your own evaluative reactions regarding intelligence, friendliness, and trustworthiness. Analyze media representations of accents and dialects (film villains, comedy characters) to identify recurring ideological patterns. Study a language policy debate (English-only legislation, bilingual education, endangered language revitalization) and identify the ideological assumptions underlying each position.
From your introduction to sociolinguistics, you know that language varies systematically across regions and social groups — no variety is linguistically superior to another from a descriptive standpoint. Language attitudes are the evaluative judgments speakers attach to those varieties despite that linguistic equality. They are not neutral observations; they are social acts. When someone says an accent "sounds uneducated" or a dialect "sounds aggressive," they are not describing the phonology — they are expressing a set of beliefs about the speakers of that variety, beliefs absorbed from broader social structures.
Language ideology is the term linguists use for the belief systems that organize and naturalize those attitudes. The most influential ideology in English-speaking contexts is standard language ideology: the widespread conviction that one variety (the "standard") is inherently correct, logical, and beautiful, while all others are deficient deviations. The critical point is that standard varieties are not linguistically superior — they are dialects that gained prestige because they were spoken by groups with institutional power (courts, schools, print media), not because of any intrinsic structural advantage. Standard English is not more expressive or logical than African American English or Scots or Appalachian English — it simply has institutional backing. The ideology obscures this historical origin, making the standard's prestige feel natural and inevitable rather than political and contingent.
The social consequences of this ideology are real and measurable. Linguicism — discrimination based on language or accent — affects speakers of non-prestige varieties in concrete ways: students are marked as less intelligent in educational settings, job applicants with non-standard accents are rated lower in hiring studies, and witnesses with strong regional accents are rated less credible in mock jury research. These outcomes don't reflect anything about the cognitive or communicative capacities of the speakers — they reflect the attitudes of evaluators who have internalized standard language ideology.
A key conceptual distinction is between overt prestige and covert prestige. Overt prestige attaches to standard or formal varieties: using them signals education, competence, and social mobility. Covert prestige attaches to vernacular or nonstandard varieties: using them signals in-group solidarity, authenticity, and local identity. Speakers navigate both systems simultaneously. A working-class speaker may use standard features in a job interview (orienting toward overt prestige) while using vernacular features with family (orienting toward covert prestige). Neither orientation is more "authentic" — both are strategic, context-sensitive performances of identity. Understanding this dual prestige system explains why speakers don't simply abandon stigmatized varieties even when they have access to prestige alternatives: the vernacular does social work that the standard cannot.