Cultural implications of attitudes and evaluative reactions toward dialect variation in Croatian youth

As a consequence of political changes and war, during the last decade the migration processes have been intensified and in comers from other parts of Croatia and neighbouring countries have moved to the town of Zagreb and have changed it considerably. These demographic changes have also had an influence on the language used in the area and on language attitudes towards the Standard Croatian, local vernacular and other dialectal varieties. The aim of this study is to explore the awareness that speakers, Croatian adolescents resident in Zagreb, have of their own language variety and their attitudes toward different other dialect varieties. The data were collected using the speech guise method and a questionnaire in order to assess both conscious and unconscious components of these linguistic evaluations. The results obtained once again confirmed the expected prestige of the Standard variety in terms of its speaker's alleged highest competence, but also its low standing as far as social attractiveness is concerned. Non-standard local varieties showed the exactly opposite trend, although the evaluation of native and immigrant adolescents differed considerably.