Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 738
Part of Session 167: Fine phonetic detail and sociolinguistic ethnography (Other abstracts in this session)
The sociophonetics of prosodic parameters and identity construction in the London Indian diaspora
Authors: Zipp, Lena (1); Dellwo, Volker (2)
Submitted by: Zipp, Lena (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
English segmental features have been shown to exhibit varying degrees of influence by heritage languages in the speech of first- and second-generation Indian-heritage speakers of English (e.g. Alam & Stuart-Smith 2011, Evans et al. 2007, Kirkham 2011, Lambert et al. 2007, McCarthy et al. 2011); at the same time, the speech rhythm of Indian-accented English is generally claimed to be located towards the syllable-timed end of the rhythm continuum (e.g. Loukina & Kochanski 2010). In this paper, we investigate if and how prosodic features (rhythmic durational and intonation) exhibit the same sociolinguistic variation as segmental features, with a focus on speakers who are in contact with both syllable-timed and stress-timed varieties of English, i.e. first- and second-generation London residents with a Hindi or Gujarati language background.
Prosodic parameters like intonation and rhythm present challenges for the study of stylistic variation in free speech, because syntactic and lexical variation cause high variability even within the utterances of the same speaker. We are using a new method that allows for an intra-speaker comparison of prosodic variables between two spontaneous styles, the ‘read speech normalization’ (RSN), in which differences between spontaneous utterances that result from different sentences are normalized using read versions of these sentences (Zipp & Dellwo 2011). The two styles are specified according to the social parameters ‘familiarity/distance’ and ‘ethnicity’, based on the respective interlocutor during the experiment (a customized map task). We show that there is significant and consistent stylistic intra-speaker variation in prosodic variables, and that this variation correlates with social parameters such as immigrant generation, familiarity/distance, and ethnicity, as well as with patterns of identity construction in questionnaire and interview data. The interviews record narrative reflections on identity construction in the Indian diaspora, community dynamics, linguistic and cultural stereotypes, and components of ethnic identity such as self-categorization and labelling, evaluation and in-group attitudes, and ethnic behaviours (Phinney & Ong 2007).
References:
Alam, F., Stuart-Smith, J. 2011. “Identity and ethnicity in in /t/ in Glasgow-Pakistani high-school girls”. Proc. XVII ICPhS Hong Kong, 216-219.
Evans, B., Mistry, A., Moreiras, C. 2007. “An acoustic study of first- and second-generation Gujerati immigrants in Wembley: Evidence for accent convergence?” Proc. XVIth ICPhS Saarbrücken, 1741-1744.
Kirkham, S. 2011. “The acoustics of coronal stops in British Asian English”. Proc. XVIIth ICPhS Hong Kong, 1102-1105.
Lambert, K., Alam, K., Stuart-Smith, J. 2007. “Investigating British Asian accents: Studies from Glasgow”. Proc. XVIth ICPhS Saarbrücken, 1509-1511.
Loukina, A., Kochanski, G. 2010. “Patterns of durational variation in British dialect”. Paper presented at PAC workshop in Montpellier, France on 13 September 2010.
McCarthy, K., Evans, B.G., Mahon, M. 2011. “Detailing the phonetic environment: A sociophonetic study of the London Bengali community”. Proc. XVIIth ICPhS Hong Kong, 1354-1357.
Phinney, J.S., Ong, A.D. 2007. “Conceptualization and Measurement of Ethnic Identity: Current Status and Future Directions”. Journal of Counseling Psychology 54 (3), 271-281
Zipp, L., Dellwo, V. 2011. "'Read speech normalization' (RSN): A method to study prosodic variability in spontaneous speech". Proc. XVIIth ICPhS Hong Kong, 2328-2331.