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- Title
Situational constraints on the evaluative significance of speech accommodation: some Australian data.
- Authors
Ball, Peter; Giles, Howard; Byrne, Jane L.; Berechree, Philip
- Abstract
The article focuses on a study which explored situational constraints on the evaluative significance of speech accommodation in the Australian setting. The subjects are matriculation college students. Materials consisted of a folder containing details of the experiment, eight stimulus tapes and a response questionnaire. Street and Hopper have reviewed the evidence suggesting that the perception of vocal characteristics of speakers can be markedly affected by psychological characteristics inherent in particular kinds of observers. The present data support this contention to the extent the Ss' likely normative expectations that C would adhere to the social pressures of sounding more refined inside rather than outside the interview were apparently so strong that the applicant was perceived as more refined in accent even when he actually maintained it throughout the experiment. Perhaps more interesting is that, in addition to psychological biases operating in the perception of speech. For instance, E's accent was perceived differently depending on whether C was either broad or refined, and Ss' perceptions of the extent of the latter's accent shifts themselves were variously influenced by where the applicant was coming from and moving to linguistically. Whether these perceptual biases carried over in any meaningful way to influence the evaluative traits is of course a moot point as, for example, X was viewed as more norm deviant, flippant about the job, and disfluent when interviewed by an R- rather than a B-accented E. Yet the shifts portrayed were realistic analogues of everyday linguistic behaviors such that they should not cause us undue concern. Nonetheless, future research could be applied to exploring further the relationships and interactions between perceptual and evaluative processes in the reception of messages.
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; SPEECH; PHONETICS; LANGUAGE &; languages; LINGUISTICS
- Publication
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1984, Vol 1984, Issue 46, p115
- ISSN
0165-2516
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/ijsl.1984.46.115