Assessing National Stereotypes in Language Attitude Studies

There are a lot of literature on cross-cultural communication, and often it’s based on empirical analyses of national cultures, whereas others publications seem to be based on very little scientific evidence. That's why people do believe in such stereotypes as “the Americans do this”, “the English do that”. One national stereotype which is frequently presented in cross-cultural communication literature is social class and class-consciousness. It is widely assumed that in some societies people are highly conscious of social-class differentiations while, in other countries, people are seen as more or less equal. …