The Cognitive Structure behind Indexicality: Correlations in Tasks Linking /s/ Variation and Masculinity

doi:10.1017/9781108578684.006

6 - The Cognitive Structure behind Indexicality: Correlations in Tasks Linking /s/ Variation and Masculinity

from Part I - Where Is (Social) Meaning?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2021

Kathryn Campbell-Kibler

Edited by

Lauren Hall-Lew,

Emma Moore and

Robert J. Podesva

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Lauren Hall-Lew: Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Emma Moore: Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Robert J. Podesva: Affiliation:
Stanford University, California

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Summary

This chapter explores the cognitive links necessary to create and use indexical meaning of sociolinguistic variation, specifically, whether different sociolinguistic behaviors – speech perception, speech production, and sociolinguistic evaluation – depend on the same associative links between linguistic and social concepts. Three effects are replicated and the correlations between them examined: 1 influence of speaker gender on /s/ production; 2 influence of linguistic forms (/s/ variants) on speaker evaluation (masculinity judgments); 3 influence of social information (masculinity) on speech perception (placement of the /s/-/?/ boundary). Despite successful replication of all three effects, little evidence was found for correlations across participants: that is, participants with a particularly strong tendency to infer masculinity from hearing a speaker’s /s/ production were no more likely than others to show a large shift in their /s/-/?/ boundary in response to the perceived masculinity of the talker, or to have a particularly gender-typical /s/ production themselves. This provides preliminary evidence that the mental associations used in indexical practices may develop independently of one another.

Keywords

social meaning third wave sociolinguistic variation indexicality sociophonetics sociolinguistic cognition language and gender

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Type: Chapter
Information: Social Meaning and Linguistic Variation
Theorizing the Third Wave
, pp. 127 - 150
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108578684.006 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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