Doctoral dissertation research: Exploring individual differences in prime-based intraspeaker variation and perceptual adaptation

一个人的发音和语音处理并不是一成不变的，会随着语境因素的变化而变化，比如他们是谁(或认为他们在听)说话/听什么，话题是什么，甚至是基于联想启动的方言预期的微妙变化。这些语境因素是否以及如何影响不同的人，以及它们是否以同样的方式影响言语产生和感知过程。在这项研究中，阿比盖尔·沃克女士将研究身份、语言经验和语言声望如何限制对话话题和联想启动对语言加工的影响。这项研究聚焦于美国和英国的外籍人士、英超(EPL)足球和美式足球球迷的行为，并衡量了标准美式英语(SAE)和标准英式英语(SBE)之间的转换/适应。Walker使用实验技术(命名任务和噪音中句子的可理解性)，结合丰富的访谈数据，观察SAE和SBE的不同联想启动词对与启动词有不同身份关系的人的影响，以及对启动方言暴露程度的不同程度的影响。研究结果将关键地导致对我们预计何时会看到音标内转移的更准确的预测，并可能促使身份认同严重地融入语音处理的认知模型中。关键的是，通过比较说话者内部的产出和感知变化，沃克可以比较身份认同是否以类似的方式影响产出和认知(即，积极的身份关系是否会同时导致产出变化和对该方言的知觉适应？)，这对产出-感知接口有影响。为这项提议提供资金将加强对有前途的研究生的培训。

An individual person's pronunciation and speech processing are not constant, changing with contextual factors like who they are (or think they are) talking/listening to, what the topic is, and even subtle shifts in dialect expectations based on associative priming. What is not established is whether and how these contextual factors affect different people, and whether they affect speech production and perception processes in the same way.In this study, Ms. Abigail Walker will investigate how identity, linguistic experience and linguistic prestige constrain the effects of topic of conversation and associative priming on linguistic processing. The study focuses on the behavior of American and English expatriates, and fans of English Premier League (EPL) soccer and American football in the U.S. and the U.K., and measures shifts/ adaptations between Standard American English (SAE) and Standard British English (SBE). Walker uses experimental techniques (a naming task and sentence intelligibility in noise) combined with rich interview data to see how different associative primes of SAE and SBE affect people with different identity relations to the primes, and different levels of exposure to the primed dialects.The results will critically lead to tighter predictions on when we expect to see intraspeaker shifting, and could prompt the serious incorporation of identity into cognitive models of speech processing. Critically, by comparing production and perception shifts within speakers, Ms. Walker can compare whether identity affects production and perception in similar ways (i.e., do positive identity relations to a prime result in both production shifts and perceptual adaptations to that dialect?), which has implications for the production-perception interface. Funding this proposal will enhance the training of a promising graduate student.