This chapter discusses the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and its variants as novel measures for implicit language attitudes. The IAT is a reaction time-based categorisation task that measures automatic associations between a target and attribute concept. In the case of language attitudes, this comes down to measuring whether people automatically associate a language (variety) or linguistic feature with positive/negative valence or with specific social attributes of the speaker. The method originates in social psychology, where it has been used to study a wide variety of topics (e.g. racial bias, self-esteem), and has recently been introduced to linguistics to study the social meaning of language variation. This chapter discusses the merits and potential disadvantages of using the IAT paradigm for such linguistic purposes. In addition, the chapter gives a practical introduction to setting up a study using the IAT paradigm and explains how to analyse the reaction time data harvested in the experiment and interpret the results. The main points of the chapter are illustrated with a case study that uses the P-IAT to measure associations with Standard Belgian Dutch as well as two regional varieties of Belgian Dutch.

Chapter 4 is the first of four chapters that each explore conceptual aspects that are of potential interest to researchers when using language to access cognition, across a broad range of subject areas. These conceptual aspects can therefore be regarded as prominent analysis perspectives. This chapter starts by discussing two central phenomena related to cognitive orientation: attention and perspective. Both of these are systematically reflected in language use, albeit in different ways: attention underlies our choice of what we say, whereas perspective addresses how we say it. What we say will reflect what we attend to; aspects that we barely think about will rarely be reflected in our descriptions. As we formulate what we’re attending to, we can use our own point of view or adopt a different one, such as our interaction partner’s standpoint. While we don𣀙t often say explicitly which perspective we’re using, our language will reflect the underlying viewpoint in systematic ways.

This chapter gently sets the stage for the book, using accessible language and intuitive examples. It outlines the key insights in the book in simple terms, provides motivation for the issues addressed in subsequent chapters, and introduces relevant facts from everyday experience as well as academic background. Straightforward insights help to motivate and encourage the reader to consider using Cognitive Discourse Analysis in their own research, independent of previous experience in linguistic analysis. The short chapter ends by listing the main content for each of the book’s chapters, thus providing a first detailed and intuitive overview of the book’s overall scope.