Abstract
The current study examines how listeners make gradient and variable ethnolinguistic judgments in an experimental context where the speaker’s identity is well-known. It features an open-guise experiment (Soukup, 2013) that assessed whether sociolinguistic judgments are subject to incrementality, with judgments increasing in magnitude as variable stimuli demonstrate more extreme differences. In particular, this task tested whether judgments of President Barack Obama as sounding ‘more’ or ‘less’ black (e.g., Alim & Smitherman, 2012) are sensitive to differences in intonation. Half of critical stimuli featured an L+H* pitch accent, which occurs more frequently in African American Language than in Mainstream U.S. English (Holliday, 2016). Four stimuli apiece were created from these phrases by making each pitch accent more extreme by semitone-based F0 steps. Seventy-nine listeners rated these stimuli via the question, “How black does Obama sound here?” Mixed-effects modeling indicated that listeners rated more phonetically extreme L+H* stimuli as sounding blacker, regardless of listener identity. A post-hoc analysis found that listeners attended to different voice quality features in L+H* stimuli. We discuss implications for research in intonation, ethnic identification, incrementality, language attitudes, and sociolinguistic awareness.
Highlights
Recent research in perceptual sociolinguistics has investigated a host of phonetic and phonological variables—primarily segmental—to assess the extent to which social meanings are constructed in perception, similar to the way they are constructed in ongoing production
The current study examined listener ratings of phonetically manipulated speech to test whether listeners were sensitive to such manipulations in the process of making judgments about speaker ethnicity
Speech rate, peak delay, harmonics to noise ratio (HNR), and jitter appear to influence listener judgments, though the salience of voice quality features may be mediated by the presence versus absence of L+H* pitch accents
Summary
Recent research in perceptual sociolinguistics has investigated a host of phonetic and phonological variables—primarily segmental—to assess the extent to which social meanings are constructed in perception, similar to the way they are constructed in ongoing production. Despite production research in sociolinguistics demonstrating how speakers use intonational variation to index various ethnic identities and social stances (Burdin, 2015; Holliday, 2016; Reed, 2016), there has been a general lack of perceptual research on the social meanings of intonational variables. While decades of research have demonstrated U.S listeners’ ability to distinguish African American and white voices (cf Thomas & Reaser, 2004), these studies have revealed challenges inherent in isolating speaker-specific variables that drive ethnic identification (Holliday & Jaggers, 2015; Purnell, Idsardi, & Baugh, 1999); there has been little research on prosody more generally in ethnolinguistic and regional varieties of English (Burdin, Holliday, & Reed, 2018).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
