Dialect contact in real interactions and in an agent-based model

Abstract

This study investigates if and to what extent speakers change their vowel production after interacting with someone from a different dialect region. Phonetic accommodation was investigated for 14 mixed-dialect pairs in Swiss German. Vowels for each speaker pair were analysed acoustically before and after they interacted for about 20 minutes. Agent-based modelling was used to simulate the change in absence of social and interactional factors. The simulation predicted that convergence was not symmetric but depended on a vowel's variability and its orientation in the acoustic space prior to the interaction. No evidence of convergence was found for the accommodation study involving 14 real interactions. The lack of convergence is explained with reference to the specific sociolinguistic situation of German-speaking Switzerland, where dialects carry a high prestige and are mutually intelligible, and where mixed-dialect interactions are the norm.