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Comparing social meanings across listener and speaker groups: The indexical field of Spanish /s/

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2014

Abby Walker ,
Christina García ,
Yomi Cortés  and
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler
Abby Walker
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
Christina García
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
Yomi Cortés
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico—Mayagüez
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Abstract

Recent research has suggested that the contribution of individual sociolinguistic variables to the social perception of a speaker is influenced by other available information about the speaker (Campbell-Kibler, 2007; Pharao, Maegaard, Spindler Møller, & Kristiansen, 2014). Here we investigate the impact of listener awareness of regional sociolinguistic variation on sociolinguistic perception. Specifically, we compare how the social meanings attributed to word-internal, preconsonantal /s/ differ based on whether the listeners and speakers use predominantly /s/-weakening Puerto Rican Spanish or predominantly non–/s/-weakening Mexican Spanish. We find that for measures of status, Puerto Rican and Mexican listeners both show a smaller effect of /s/ when rating Puerto Rican as opposed to Mexican speakers. However, we see no effect of speaker nationality on heteronormativity, and Puerto Rican listeners and male Mexican listeners rate strong /s/ as less heteronormative across the board. Mexican female listeners, however, rate strong /s/ as more heteronormative. These results suggest that listeners integrate their own local ideologies with their understanding of regional differences when socially evaluating language variation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , July 2014 , pp. 169 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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