Within-speaker variation in passing for a native speaker

Abstract

This study quantitatively explores variation in passing for a native speaker of English and also discusses speakers’ passing for a native speaker of the same dialect as the listeners, other dialects, or not passing at all and always being perceived as a non-native speaker. It also examines other factors that may influence variation in passing such as conversational setting (which has been suggested by participants’ self-reports in Piller, 2002). Thirty native-speaking listeners were presented with clips from 24 native and non-native speakers of English and were asked to guess the origin of the speaker. Passing is quantified through the number of times listeners in a perception task believed speakers to be from English-speaking countries. The results of this study suggest that passing for a native speaker of different varieties is quite common, and some speakers pass for a native speaker of another variety as an intermediate step between passing for a native speaker of the same variety and not passing at all. The speakers’ self-reports and quantitative analysis of their production also suggests that there is a considerable amount of intra-speaker variation across different conversational settings. Most studies that focus on passing have been qualitative and/or rely on self-reports (e.g. Piller, 2002), so any claims about variation in passing are not typically supported by actual linguistic production. One particular consideration that is usually omitted is the difference between passing for a native speaker of the same dialect as the listener and that of a different dialect. This study explores situational variability in passing quantitatively and also considers the trends in passing for a native speaker of different dialects. This study is an example of a fruitful combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, to explore the intersection between second language acquisition and sociolinguistics.