Sociophonetics: geographical and social variation

in general terms, sociophonetics involves the integration of the principles, tech­niques, and theoretical frameworks of phonetics with those of sociolinguistics. However, there has been considerable variation both in the usage of the term and the definition of the field, so that sociophonetic research may orient more towards the concerns of sociolinguists on the one hand or phoneticians on the other.

The first recorded use of the term "socio-phonetic" (sic) is by Deshaies-Lafontaine (1974), a dissertation on variation in Canadian French carried out squarely within the emergent field of Labovian or variationist sociolinguistics. The term was coined as a parallel to "sociolinguistic" in order to capture the project's emphasis on phonetic rather than syntactic or lexical variables (Deshaies, p.c.).¹ Among phoneticians, sociophonetics has been used as a thematic label at the quadrennial International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) since 1979. The nine papers presented under this heading at the 1979 conference followed the pattern set by Deshaies-Lafontaine in addressing central questions in sociolinguistics with reference to phonetic variables. Contributions included papers by eminent sociolinguists such as Labov (on vowel normalization) and Romaine (on variation and change in Scottish / r/). Probably the first example of explicitly sociophonetic work published in a prominent journal is the variationist study of Viennese German by Dressler and Wodak (1982, although they prefer the epithet "sociophonological," with synonymous intent).

Since these early studies the quantity of research which can be described as sociophonetic has increased rapidly, particularly since the mid 1990s, and the scope of that research has become ever broader.

1.1 Sources of variation

The majority of work carried out under the rubric of sociophonetics has focused on identifying the indexical roles of features of speech production. It has been established that speech varies in systematic ways as a function of a very wide range of social factors. This has been one of the fundamental contributions of Labovian sociolinguistics more generally, and is reflected in the early sociophonetic works referred to in the introduction. One of Labov's principal motivations at the inception of his highly influential studies of English in New York City was to show, contra earlier works on American urban varieties such as Hubbell (1950), that linguistic variation is not random, inexplicable, or theoretically irrelevant. This manifesto, laid out explicitly in Labov (1966a), informs all subsequent work carried out under the variationist sociolinguistics banner.

Early sociolinguistic work focused on sources of variation identified as correlating with broad demographic categories such as social class, age, speaker sex, and ethnicity, and with speaking style

1.1.1 Regional variation

In addition to the social dimensions of variation we should also comment on studies of regional variation, since speech also indexes a person's geographical identity. Regional studies have a particularly long history, and in fact, from the perspective of our definition of sociophonetics, it is possible to regard the pioneers of nineteenth-century dialectology as the first socio­phoneticians (e.g., Wenker, 1895). Their work not only yielded descriptive documenta­tion of geographical variation, it also showed awareness of the social variation within communities through the predominant focus on older rural males as the harbingers of maximally archaic forms, as well as a recognition that traditional dialects were undergoing change through processes such as standardization (Chambers & Trudgill, 1998). Contemporary analyses of regional variation operate with more complex notions of space which acknowledge "distance" between locations as having social and psychological dimensions rather than being defined solely in terms of geographical proximity (Britain, 2002). Such factors may include

political boundaries and differing orientations towards larger economic centers (e.g., Boberg, 2000; Woolhiser, 2005; Llamas, 2007).

The wider mobility of some groups, implicit and explicit processes of national and supralocal standardization, and people's exposure to and awareness of other regional varieties have been prime areas of interest for sociophoneticians. Advances in telecommunications, recording, and analysis technologies have facilitated the exploration of interaction and interference between a wide range of subtly differ­ent phonetic systems. For an overview of recent studies carried out within this framework and the development of increasingly sophisticated theoretical models to which they contribute see Auer et al. (2005).

2.2.1 Geographical Variation

Speech and language can give us an indication of a person’s geographical identity. In fact, “geographical diversity was ... the first observation made in linguistics” (Saussure, 1974:191). A speaker’s geographical identity determines the particular regional accent used. The specific variety of accent depends on where a speaker was bom, or where he or she grew up. The phonetic/phonological system is primarily responsible for differentiating regional types so the term accent is used to describe regional based variation. Speakers can be said to have “an Australian accent”, “a South African accent”, “a New York accent” or “a London accent”, for example.

The accuracy with which a person’s region of origin can be pinpointed depends on a listener’s familiarity with the region and the degree to which the speech in that area varies as a consequence of regionality (Wells, 1982a). For instance, an Australian may be able to recognise that an accent is English but perhaps not the particular region in England where that ^accent is characteristic. However, the English would more accurately be able to identify the place of origin, possibly even the city of origin, of the speaker from the particular realisations of sounds that are used. There are many distinct regional accents in England but in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where English has only been spoken for a relatively short time, the language is much more homogeneous and regional variation within these territories is negligible (Wells, 1982a).