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2.3 Factors Influencing Language Attitude
According to a book of Sociolinguistics: The Studies of Societies’ Languages, there are several factors that influence language attitude. Each of them is explained
as follows:
2.3.1 The Prestige and Power of the Language The prestige of a language influences students’ attitude in learning the
language indeed. No wonder many people keen on learning English because the prestige is high enough. It has been regarded as a language connecting many people
whose native languages are not same. Not only Asian people but also people from many countries throughout the world. However, even though English is a language
with high power and prestige and many people are enthusiastic in learning and mastering the language, it does not mean that they have negative attitudes towards
their national and cultural feelings. In this way, there is a research done on Japanese children studying English. It has been proved that even though they show great
attraction towards the Western culture as well as the language being studied, they kept holding a strong Japanese identity and a language loyalty Downes, 2001 in Ng
Bee Chin and Gillian Wigglesworth, 2007.
2.3.2 Historical Background of Nations The historical background of one nation also influences the students to learn
the language, too. If the history is impressive and well-liked for most of nations in the world, people usually are eager to learn the country’s language probably because
the country did great and good things to one’s country. However, many people do not want to study and even know anything about the language, such as English,
10 because Western people were colonialists. This historical background of nation can
make oneself have no willing to learn English at all.
2.3.3 The Social and Traditional Factors The social and traditional factor also influence the students to learn a foreign
language which is completely new for them. Of course, it is due to the variety of language they study. Normally, a language has varieties in being used by people. The
higher variety of language is commonly regarded as the better and purer one.
2.3.4 The Language Internal System This part refers to the difficulties of the language itself, such as the
grammatical structures, pronounciations and vocabularies of the language studied, of course, this is what experts name as the internal sides of a language. Normally,
people like to study a new language, in this case, a foreign language, because of its prestige and power among other languages. In addition, even though it has a high
prestige and power, people would not like to study about it if the grammatical sturctures, pronounciations and vocabularies of the language are difficult to study.
For instance, people certainly prefer English to Germany and French because English is rather easier than Germany and French in case of grammatical structures and
specially the pronounciations. Even though English is not easy to study, at least it is easier to understand than other European languages.
2.4 Attitudes in Language Learning
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