The purpose of this study is to analyze the language attitudes of twenty university students in
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria towards the Canarian variety of Spanish compared to standard
Spanish. The investigator uses a modified matched-guise technique to test the subjects´
responses to speech samples from four speakers reading the same text: two Canarian speaking
voices and two voices speaking the standard Spanish variety. The subjects listen to the
recording and thereafter answer a questionnaire that evaluates their language attitudes. The
results show that prestige and solidarity are evaluated variously. In the dimension of prestige
the respondents held more positive attitudes towards the standard variety of Spanish while the
Canarian variety received less positive virtues and the respondents evaluated their own variety
in an unfavorable way. In the dimension of solidarity the attitudes towards the Canarian
variety are contradictory, indicating a possible division between the judgement of an educated
variety and a vulgar variety.