Exploring listeners’ real-time reactions to regional accents

Abstract

Evaluative reactions to language stimuli are presumably dynamic events, constantly changing through time as the signal unfolds, yet the tools we usually use to capture these reactions provide us with only a snapshot of this process by recording reactions at a single point in time. This paper outlines and evaluates a new methodology which employs audience response data collection techniques to capture listeners’ real-time reactions to variation in a speech signal. Using bespoke audience response software administered via the Web, we provide evidence that (1) listeners’ reactions to language data can be captured in real-time and (2) recent innovations in statistical analysis can isolate relevant points at which participants express positive or negative evaluations. In conclusion, we suggest that, given the right stimuli, real-time changes in evaluative reaction can be correlated with linguistic variation and so can be used as a way of uncovering the features that are salient in a given language variety.

Keywords:

• language attitudes
• audience response system
• evaluation
• sociolinguistic salience

Acknowledgements

The beginnings of this idea were sparked during a discussion with Shaun Austin, and we would like to thank him for his thoughtful responses and enthusiastic comments on our plans as the idea came to fruition. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the ESRC (Grant number RES-061-25-0458).

Notes

1. Bard et al. (1996) employed Magnitude Estimation in studies of grammaticality judgements rather than attitude judgements but the principles are the same.

2. The bespoke website was designed by Sam Hampton-Smith of hampton-smith limited (see: http://www.hampton-smith.com). We are very grateful for his advice and technical know-how as the site developed. We would also like to thank Stef Strong for her help with technical issues.

3. In order to improve cross-browser compatibility, a fallback mechanism which invoked Adobe Flash was also incorporated. This ensured that non-HTML5 browsers could still access the pages.

4. See http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/files/apps/old_IViE/. With thanks to Greg Kochanski and John Coleman at the University of Oxford for giving us permission to use the IViE clips.

5. The clip of the Cambridge speaker was the closest to Standard Southern British English.

6. In future work, the samples should be randomised and counterbalanced to account for this.

7. See http://cran.r-project.org/. See also Killick and Eckley (2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Watson

Kevin Watson is a senior lecturer in sociolinguistics at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His research interests centre on sociophonetics and language variation and change, with a particular focus on accents of north-west England and New Zealand.

Lynn Clark

Lynn Clark is a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She is interested in linguistic variation and change, with a particular focus on phonetics and phonology in varieties of English.