Episode 8.5: On a more technical note

This week I was asked by a colleague at one of the universities to share an abstract of my dissertation for her introductory course on phonetics & phonology. I was delighted to be asked, and it was a good chance for me to write this suuuuper preliminary abstract. I thought I would include it here since it's the reason why I'm doing this fieldwork. :)

Working title: Sociophonetic /s/ in Santiago: Production & perception of plural /s/ weakening

Mariška A. Bolyanatz, UCLA

November 9, 2015

Word-final /s/ is often weakened in Chilean Spanish, and frequency of complete elision is on the rise. Though Spanish is an inflectional language, and therefore many cases of potential confusion are avoided via verbal inflection, complete deletion of /s/ across a Noun Phrase (NP) may occasion misunderstanding, as in the following example:

(1) A: ¿Y tu[Ø] papá[Ø]?

B: ¿Mi papá?

A: O sea, ¿tu mamá y tu papá?

The first turn was in fact plural, with a deleted /s/, causing confusion for the speaker’s interlocutor. According to the functionalist theory, the phonological system is based on two principles, which are at times in opposition to one another: minimize the speaker’s effort, and also minimize the probability of confusion on the part of the interlocutor (Hayes 1996, Flemming 2004). Therefore, if /s/ deletion has the potential to cause confusion, according to this theory, the phonological system will modify to ensure comprehension on the part of the listener.

In this dissertation, I examine /s/ production and perception in 2 Santiago neighborhoods, in order to determine what strategies (social & phonetic) speakers may use to compensate for the deleted /s/. Previous observations of Chilean Spanish have indicated that speakers may adjust the final vowel of a word in order to indicate its plurality, by lengthening it or altering its quality (Oroz 1966, Cepeda 1990). I therefore examine /s/ production and perception in the speech of speakers belonging to two neighborhoods, La Pintana and Vitacura, which are representative of working-class and professional-class speakers respectively. A total of 60 speakers belonging to three age groups (18-25, 26-41, 42+) participated in two production tasks designed to elicit slightly different speech styles, and one perception task. Another control group of 30 speakers (from the same demographics) also performed a brief production task, as well as a control perception task.

The production tasks consisted of a sociolinguistic interview, of which the first 200 tokens of vowels preceding plural /s/ are analyzed, and compared to the first 200 tokens of vowels of singular NPs (via Praat & VoiceSauce analysis for measures such as vowel duration, % aspiration, and vowel quality). The control perception task consisted of listeners hearing isolated words (nouns and adjectives) and indicating whether the speaker was referring to ‘one’ or ‘more than one’ items. In this way, I can later determine the phonetic cues that speakers utilize to indicate plurality when a word is isolated from its context. The second perception test uses these same stimuli, but adds an additional set of factors: each word was played 4 times, and each time associated with a different image: a young working class speaker, an older working class speaker, a young professional class speaker, and an older professional class speaker. In this way, I can later determine whether the perceptions of a person’s age, gender, and social class correlate with differing perceptions of plurality.

Cepeda, Gladys. 1990. “La Alofonía de /s/ En Valdivia (Chile).” Estudios Filológicos 25: 5–16.

Flemming, Edward. 2004. “Contrast and Perceptual Distinctiveness.” In Phonetically Based Phonology, by Bruce Hayes, Robert Kirchner, and Donca Steriade. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hayes, Bruce P. 1996. “Phonetically Driven Phonology: The Role of Optimality Theory and Inductive Grounding.” Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics 1: 243–85.

Oroz, Rodolfo. 1966. La Lengua Castellana En Chile. Santiago, Facultad de Filosofía y Educación: Universidad de Chile.

[See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00210.x/asset/j.1749-818X.2010.00210.x.pdf;jsessionid=823EBDBCFCCCBB2B73A915A18CA9AE8C.f04t03?v=1&t=igut5cnm&s=0272cae0bdb94f4e368482b42af60e5381a4c216

for a great & brief introduction to social factors & perception!]