Prosody and Sociolinguistic Variation in American Englishes

Abstract

Though scholarly understandings of sociolinguistic variation have undergone a significant expansion in the last 70 years, variables in the realm of prosody remain severely underdescribed. It is necessary to examine variation at these levels both because of its perceptual salience and utility for speakers and listeners and because of what it can illuminate about cross-variety sociolinguistic differences. This article reviews some of the key methodologies that have been used to study prosody in phonological research and discusses the limited body of sociophonetic literature that has examined such variables. It concludes with a discussion of the future of sociophonetic studies in the twenty-first century and the importance of examining prosodic variables for a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of variation itself.