Maria-Josep Solé u. Daniel Recasens (eds.): The Initiation of Sound Change: Perception, production and social factors

2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mailhammer
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Change Perception

Bilingualism and sound change: perception in the /ʎ/-/j/ merger process in Majorcan Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-133
Author(s):  
Assumpció Rost Bagudanch
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Balearic Islands ◽  
Chance Level ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Inhibiting Effect ◽  
Change Perception ◽  
Merger Process ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour ◽  
Contact Effects

AbstractYeísmo has been accounted for as a merger process occurring in Spanish irrespective of language contact effects though some scholars have claimed that the interference between Spanish and the variety of Catalan spoken in Majorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) has an inhibiting effect on yeísmo. This paper focusses on whether this inhibiting effect can be demonstrated at the perception level and whether it has an effect in the linguistic behaviour of bilinguals. To examine these effects, we conducted an identification experiment with three groups of listeners (Majorcan Catalan-dominant bilinguals, Spanish-dominant bilinguals and a control group of Spanish monolinguals). Results show that Catalan dominants do recognise [ʎ] stimuli, but Spanish dominants only identify [ʎ] at chance level. Consequently, it would seem that bilingual subjects display a bimodal performance at the perception level.

scholarly journals An experimental study of the role of social factors in language change: The case of loanword adaptations

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiri Lev-Ari ◽  
Sharon Peperkamp
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Semantic Domain ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThere is great variation in whether foreign sounds in loanwords are adapted or retained. Importantly, the retention of foreign sounds can lead to a sound change in the language. We propose that social factors influence the likelihood of loanword sound adaptation, and use this case to introduce a novel experimental paradigm for studying language change that captures the role of social factors. Specifically, we show that the relative prestige of the donor language in the loanword’s semantic domain influences the rate of sound adaptation. We further show that speakers adapt to the performance of their ‘community', and that this adaptation leads to the creation of a norm. The results of this study are thus the first to show an effect of social factors on loanword sound adaptation in an experimental setting. Moreover, they open up a new domain of experimentally studying language change in a manner that integrates social factors.

The role of educational factors in the development of lexical splits

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-72
Author(s):  
Yuhan Lin
Keyword(s):  
Education System ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Time Analysis ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Potential Factors ◽  
Statistical Results

Abstract While variationist literature on sound change has mostly focused on chain shifts and mergers, much less is written about splits (Labov, 1994, 2010). Previous literature shows that the acquisition of splits is unlikely unless motivated by social factors (Labov, 1994). The current study presents an apparent time analysis on the development of two phonemic splits, the initial /s/-/ʂ/ contrast and the initial /ɻ/-/l/ contrast, in Xiamen Mandarin, a contact variety of Putonghua, the official language in China. Statistical results showed similar patterns for both variables: younger speakers and female speakers are leading the change; the distinction between two phonemes are more distinct in wordlist than in the sociolinguistic interview. By examining the sociolinguistic situation in Xiamen, the paper discusses two potential factors that have led to these sound changes: the regional campaign for Putonghua and the emphasis of Pinyin, a phonetically-based orthography, in the education system.

Laryngeal-oral coarticulation in glottalized English plosives

1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Roach
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Temporal Organization ◽  
Related Phenomenon ◽  
Preliminary Attempt ◽  
Closed Glottis ◽  
Age And Sex ◽  
Made In

It has been observed by many writers on English phonetics that /p/, /t/, /k/ and /tʃ/ are frequently glottalized, i.e. produced with closed glottis. This observation raises a variety of interesting questions. Firstly, the phonological environments in which glottalization occurs have yet to be satisfactorily described; a preliminary attempt at a re-statement was made in Roach (1973) and a fuller account presented in Roach (1978). Secondly, it is of interest to study the articulatory mechanisms used in the production of glottalization, both from the point of view of finding out more about how laryngeal closures in speech are produced, and also with respect to the temporal organization of the laryngeal and supralaryngeal closures. Thirdly, since the incidence of glottalization (and of the closely related phenomenon of glottal replacement) appears to vary according to geographical and social factors, age and sex, it is of interest in dialectological and sociolinguistic studies of English. Finally, in a wider context, glottalization may be studied as being potentially an on-going sound change in English, and as a phenomenon that might possibly be linked with similar laryngeal articulations in other languages, e.g. the stød of Standard Danish and of West Jutland Danish.

The /ay/ diphthong in a Martha's Vineyard community: What can we say 40 years after Labov?

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
RENÉE BLAKE ◽  
MEREDITH JOSEY
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Martha's Vineyard ◽  
Martha’S Vineyard ◽  
Internal And External Factors

This article revisits Labov's (1962, 1972a) germinal sociolinguistic work on Martha's Vineyard speech, providing a synchronic analysis of the /ay/ diphthong in words like right and time, and, in turn, a diachronic perspective on a sound change in progress. Labov observed that the first element of the /ay/ diphthong was raised in the speech of Martha's Vineyarders, particularly fishermen, and he correlated it with social factors like identity (i.e., local heritage) and resistance to summer visitors. The present authors provide a sociolinguistic analysis of /ay/ from a new set of data collected in a Martha's Vineyard speech community. The outcome suggests a change in the linguistic pattern observed by Labov, which the authors argue is linked to socio-economic restructuring and resulting ideological changes taking place on the island. The acoustic and social factors are analyzed using VARBRUL to show how /ay/ variation today patterns with various internal and external factors found to be salient in Labov's earlier study.

Consonant weakening in Florentine Italian: A cross-disciplinary approach to gradient and variable sound change

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Villafaña Dalcher
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Consonant Weakening ◽  
Speech Data ◽  
Italian Dialects

ABSTRACTFew acoustic studies of the intervocalic consonant lenition in central Italian dialects (a process known as Gorgia Toscana) have been undertaken. This study examines speech data from Florentine Italian in order to describe the process of Gorgia Toscana quantitatively and to assess the roles of physiological, perceptual, phonological, and social factors in the process. Results of acoustic and statistical analysis indicate gradient and variable output, with certain patterns occurring in the variation. The observations that emerge from the data cannot all be accounted for if Gorgia Toscana is characterized as a purely phonetic, phonological, or socially driven process of sound change. Rather, different aspects of the process are attributed to different motivators: gradience and velar preference to articulator movements, resistance of nonvelar lenition to perceptual constraints, targeting of a natural class and categorical weakening to abstract featural representations, and intersubject variation in velar lenition to external social factors.

Domestic Integration and Suicide in the Provinces of Canada

Crisis ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoon A. Leenaars ◽  
David Lester
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Negative Association ◽  
Birth Rates ◽  
Marriage Rates ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
The Social ◽  
Divorce Rates ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Over Time

Canada's rate of suicide varies from province to province. The classical theory of suicide, which attempts to explain the social suicide rate, stems from Durkheim, who argued that low levels of social integration and regulation are associated with high rates of suicide. The present study explored whether social factors (divorce, marriage, and birth rates) do in fact predict suicide rates over time for each province (period studied: 1950-1990). The results showed a positive association between divorce rates and suicide rates, and a negative association between birth rates and suicide rates. Marriage rates showed no consistent association, an anomaly as compared to research from other nations.

Illness Perception and Its Changes During Six Months After Cardiac Rehabilitation

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 90-100
Author(s):  
Justė Lukoševičiūtė ◽  
Kastytis Šmigelskas
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Nyha Class ◽  
Illness Perception ◽  
Heart Association ◽  
Class Iii ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Coronary Syndrome ◽  
Type D ◽  
New York Heart Association

Abstract. Illness perception is a concept that reflects patients' emotional and cognitive representations of disease. This study assessed the illness perception change during 6 months in 195 patients (33% women and 67% men) with acute coronary syndrome, taking into account the biological, psychological, and social factors. At baseline, more threatening illness perception was observed in women, persons aged 65 years or more, with poorer functional capacity (New York Heart Association [NYHA] class III or IV) and comorbidities ( p < .05). Type D personality was the only independent factor related to more threatening illness perception (βs = 0.207, p = .006). At follow-up it was found that only self-reported cardiovascular impairment plays the role in illness perception change (βs = 0.544, p < .001): patients without impairment reported decreasing threats of illness, while the ones with it had a similar perception of threat like at baseline. Other biological, psychological, and social factors were partly associated with illness perception after an acute cardiac event but not with perception change after 6 months.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document