Advancements of phonetics in the 21st century: Theoretical issues in sociophonetics

Abstract

Variation in speech has always been important to phonetic theory, but takes centerstage in the growing area of sociophonetics, which places the role of the social at the heart of the theoretical and methodological enterprise. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of key advances and theoretical issues in sociophonetic research, in both production and perception. It reviews the foundations of sociophonetics in phonetics and sociolinguistics, and articulates several major theoretical questions that run through sociophonetic work, as well as the nature of evidence and methods in sociophonetics. It explores the many factors that underpin variation and change within individuals, such as speech accommodation and speech style, and major factors that organize group-level variation and change, including regional affiliation, social class, sex, gender, and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and age. By connecting sociophonetic research to a wide range of areas, from cognition to indexicality, the paper synthesizes cross-cutting themes from prior research, and highlights current and future directions for the field.