Intonational variation and incrementality in listener judgments of ethnicity

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 openguise 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 semitonebased 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.

Perceiving gender while perceiving language: Integrating psycholinguistics and gender theory

“…In the past two decades, there has been a sharp increase in the number of studies of the type described in the previous paragraph, in which it appears that individuals' perception of phonemes, words, and longer stretches of speech is modified depending on what they believe or are told about the speakers who produced the speech being perceived (Babel & Russell, 2015;Campbell-Kibler, 2005;D'Onofrio, 2018D'Onofrio, , 2019Drager, 2011;Hanulíkov a, 2018;Holliday & Villarreal, 2020;Jannedy et al, 2011;Koops et al, 2008;Levon, 2014;Mack & Munson, 2012;McGowan, 2015;Munson, 2011;Munson & Babel, 2007;Niedzielski, 1997;Niedzielski, 1999;Strand, 1999Strand, , 2000Walker et al, 2019;Walker & Hay, 2011). These findings have been used as evidence that social knowledge affects the perception of spoken language pervasively.…”

A meeting of the minds: Broadening horizons in the study of linguistic discrimination and social justice through sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic approaches

“…As evidenced here, Black Americans have a particular sound that leads to a particular "percept," or "object of perception," which can have discriminatory outcomes. As AAE researchers have expanded their conceptualizations of the variety to account for different social factors across gender, region, and socioeconomic class (Holliday & Villarreal, 2020;King, 2021;Lanehart, 2009), it has become clear that there is a hierarchy of AAE features ideologically associated with the variety-that is, some features are strongly enregistered (Agha, 2005; e.g., "axe" for "ask"), while others are not, like auxiliary flexibility (Weissler, 2021). Even in the absence of AAE morphosyntactic features, people can still discern when speech is coming from a Black individual, as evidenced by the growing body of research on the prosodic and intonational features of AAE (Holliday, 2021;Holliday & Villarreal, 2020;Thomas & Reaser, 2004;Weldon, 2021).…”

“…As AAE researchers have expanded their conceptualizations of the variety to account for different social factors across gender, region, and socioeconomic class (Holliday & Villarreal, 2020;King, 2021;Lanehart, 2009), it has become clear that there is a hierarchy of AAE features ideologically associated with the variety-that is, some features are strongly enregistered (Agha, 2005; e.g., "axe" for "ask"), while others are not, like auxiliary flexibility (Weissler, 2021). Even in the absence of AAE morphosyntactic features, people can still discern when speech is coming from a Black individual, as evidenced by the growing body of research on the prosodic and intonational features of AAE (Holliday, 2021;Holliday & Villarreal, 2020;Thomas & Reaser, 2004;Weldon, 2021). So, while the racist outcomes are clear, the specific linguistic mechanisms are not, which is where inquiry into cognition comes into play in the pursuit of linguistic justice for racialized varieties and speakers, such as looking at how people's experience with AAE and usage of the variety modulates their interaction with it in real-time experimental paradigms (Weissler, 2021).…”

Visibly invisible: The study of middle class African American English

“…Such terms are often contrasted with circulating notions of 'talking or sounding White or Proper', which tend to be viewed more negatively, at least by some within the community (see e.g., Mitchell-Kernan, 1971). Much of what distinguishes these opposing concepts seems to exist at the level of phonology (see e.g., Weldon, 2018Weldon, , 2021) and perhaps especially prosody, which has received far less attention in the AAE literature, save a few key studies such as Tarone (1973), Thomas and Carter (2006), Rahman (2008), Thomas (2015), and several recent studies by Nicole Holliday, including Holliday (2016Holliday ( , 2019Holliday ( , 2021aHolliday ( , 2021bHolliday ( , 2021c, Holliday and Villarreal (2020), and .…”