Semantic Differential Scaling of Audiovisual Recordings of Children's Speech Samples. Technical Report.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the two judgmental factors of "confidence-eagerness" and "ethnicity-nonstandardness" (previously identified from teachers' semantic differential evaluations of audio-taped samples of children's speech) would still be found when samples were presented in an audiovisual mode and whether these factors were pertinent to the differentiation of ethnic and social status. A set of 2-minute video-tapes made from interviews with six 11 and 12 year old boys from six ethno-status groups--Black middle and lower, Mexican-American middle and lower, and Anglo middle and lower--was presented as test stimuli to 102 undergraduate female Anglos who were asked to respond to a 59-item semantic differential scale. Some of the subjects were asked to respond to the audio mode, others to the video mode, and the rest to complete audio-visual conditions. Their responses implied that the two-factor model of confidence-eagerness and ethnicity-nonstandardness can be used in video-taped studies of children's speech. (Included are tabulations of adjectival pairs in the 59-item semantic instrument, subjects' responses to a semantic differential scale, and results of the two-factor analyses of confidence-eagerness and ethnicity-nonstandardness.) See also TE 002 001 and TE 002 002. (JM)