Peter Carrillo & Amelia Liggett

 AGE: ____  GENDER: ____  Major/Minor: _________________________________________ (Write “undecided” if unsure)  Year in School: Graduate Student Senior Junior Sophomore Freshman (circle one)  Number of languages you speak besides English: ______  Rank your knowledge of Standard English grammar and punctuation: (circle one) Below Average / Average / Above Average  How confident are you in your writing ability? Unconfident / Confident / Very confident SURVEY QUESTIONS Please circle “correct” or “incorrect.” Go with your instinct—circle what you think is correct upon your first impression.  1) The congresswomen differed as to who they thought might win. (correct / incorrect)  2) My boss bought my coworkers and me brand new laptops. (correct / incorrect)  3) Whom is the recipient? (correct / incorrect)  4) To Josh and I, Odysseus is the best Epic poem of all time. (correct / incorrect)

 How and why do students become so linguistically insecure regarding prestige forms  How may this pattern be broken?  Respondents don’t seem to understand the standard uses of prestige forms.  Respondents hypercorrect because of the perceived formality of the prestige forms in combination with their linguistic insecurity.