Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Roles of Perception and Production in Adult Acquisition of a New Dialect's Phonological System

社会语言学的目标之一是解释语言变化的过程。语言变化是指一种语言使用者引入一种新的语言特征，而另一种语言使用者也采用这种特征。语音变化包括语音产生（说话者如何发音）和语音感知（听者如何处理和解释这些声音）。一个新的语言特征必须由第一个使用该创新的说话者产生，然后由随后采用该创新的其他语言使用者感知并最终产生。然而，直到最近，大多数社会语言学家只记录语言使用者的生产，而忽略了他们的感知。本研究调查了一群接触到新语言特征的语言使用者的产生和感知。研究结果将更清楚地显示语言创新是如何在人与人之间传播的。反过来，这将使语言学家更好地理解语言变化的过程。数据将从三个参与者组中收集：印第安纳州贾斯珀的终身居民；芝加哥的终身居民；以及成年后搬到芝加哥的贾斯珀本地人。参与者将完成阅读任务、感知测试和访谈。这些任务将提供参与者对北方城市转移的产生和感知的数据，这是一组典型的芝加哥元音转移。数据将显示第三组参与者是否以及在多大程度上采用了北方城市转移。研究结果将阐明语言产生和感知在语言变化传播中的作用，并确定言语产生和感知在成年期是否更具可塑性。这项研究将帮助语言学家了解感知和生产在采用语言变化时是如何相互作用的，哪些社会因素会影响人们是否采用语言创新，以及最终语言是如何以及为什么发生变化的。

One goal of sociolinguistics is to explain the process of language change. Language change entails the introduction of a new linguistic feature by one language user and the adoption of this feature by others. Phonetic change involves both speech production (how speakers pronounce the sounds of language) and speech perception (how listeners process and interpret these sounds). A new linguistic feature must be produced by the first speaker to use the innovation and then both perceived and eventually produced by the other language users who subsequently adopt the innovation.Until recently, however, most sociolinguists have only recorded language users' production and ignored their perception. This research investigates both the production and the perception of a group of language users who are exposed to a new linguistic feature. The results will yield a clearer picture of how linguistic innovations spread from person to person. This in turn will allow linguists to better understand the process of language change.Data will be collected from three participant groups: lifelong residents of Jasper, Indiana; lifelong residents of Chicago; and Jasper natives who have moved to Chicago in adulthood. Participants will complete a reading task, a perception test, and an interview. These tasks will provide data on participants' production and perception of the Northern Cities Shift, a group of vowel shifts typical of Chicago. The data will show whether and to what extent the third group of participants has adopted the Northern Cities Shift. The results will clarify the roles of production and perception in the spread of language change and establish whether speech production or perception is more malleable in adulthood. This study will help linguists understand how perception and production interact in the adoption of a language change, which social factors affect whether someone adopts a linguistic innovation, and ultimately how and why language changes.