Can listeners differentiate varieties using prosodic information? Lect identification in a persona-matching task

Abstract

Sociolinguists and lay people have long been interested in the mechanisms by which dialect and speaker identification occur. The current study aims to test whether realizational differences found in production studies are salient factors in identification of different lects, as well as to examine differences between groups in identification. In this study, listeners were instructed to match clips containing H* and L+H* pitch accents with specific personae who represented speakers of five lects of interest (African American English, Jewish English, Appalachian English, Southern English, and Midwestern English). Listeners from different groups (Appalachian, African American, Jewish, and those who were not from any of these groups) were presented with both low-pass filtered and unfiltered versions of the clips. Results indicate that listeners performed at or above chance in the unfiltered condition. However, we did observe a consistent pattern such that listeners confused AAE and JE voices, as well as Appalachian and Southern voices, indicating that listeners may struggle to differentiate lects with similar historical development and/or prosodic patterns. Additionally, listeners showed sensitivity to the original lect in selecting a persona in the filtered condition, though they were less accurate overall compared to the unfiltered condition. Overall, listeners appear to be more sensitive to segmental phonological than prosodic information in lect identification. Additionally, when presented with a personae matching task, listeners from a variety of backgrounds perform with a high degree of accuracy, though examining patterns of confusion help to shed light on the variables that are most salient.