Questioning the Position of SBS as the Model Variety for Serbian EFL Students

Abstract

This paper primarily investigates the attitude of Serbian EFL students, in their 4th and 5th year of university studies, towards the Southern British Standard variety of English, as well as its position in comparison with General American (GA) and Standard Australian English. The aim of this study is to determine whether SBS still remains the preferred model variety in Serbia, as well as to simultaneously investigate if a hierarchy also exists among standard varieties of English. The participants completed a questionnaire that combined the matched-guise technique with the Likert-scale and a series of open-ended questions. The questions cover the identification of one of the three varieties of English, assessment of model speakers’ traits classified into social status and social closeness. Results show that, overall, EFL students react more positively to GA and SBS. However, this paper reports some unexpected results − SBS ranks the highest not only in terms of prestige, but also social closeness. This finding diverges from previous research and implies that, although GA might be more present in production with this group of EFL students, SBS still holds the position of the primary model variety, whose dominance also extends to social attractiveness.