Revisiting the Sociolinguistic Analysis of Variable Coda /s/ Weakening in Spanish: An Instrumental Phonetic Approach

该奖项由2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法第111-5条)资助。研究西班牙语中音节-FINAL/S/的不同发音一直是社会语言变异领域的核心问题。基于裸耳感知，以前的研究将西班牙语/S/描述为完全发音的[-S]、发音不足的[h]或完全/S/缺失的情况。但这种分段描述掩盖了声学变化的系统模式；可变的语音现象通过基于计算机的、亚分段语音的工具测量来更准确地描述。在对西班牙语和西班牙语-英语双语者(包括在拉丁美洲出生的人和在美国出生的人)的访谈的基础上，本研究将提供20,000个音节结尾西班牙语/S/的标记的工具性语音描述，并计算每个标记的细分描述，以毫秒为持续时间，以赫兹为频率。这项研究将包括这些代币的语言内部变量和社会人口预测变量的详细说明。变异性研究的社会影响源于它提供的证据表明，无论收入、教育程度、公民身份或双语水平如何，所有说话者的语言行为都是系统性的。本研究的参与者涵盖了所有这些社会类别。因此，更准确地理解他们的语言有助于更广泛地了解美国社会中使用最广泛的少数民族语言和美国学校教授最频繁的外语。因此，这项研究有助于在美国移民和少数族裔社区、美国学校和整个美国社会中建立一个更真实、更准确的社会语言学景观概念。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Studying the variable pronunciation of syllable-final /s/ in Spanish (mismo 'same,' sabes 'you know,' buenas 'good') has been central to the field of sociolinguistic variation. On the basis of naked ear perceptions, previous studies describe Spanish /s/ as either a fully articulated [-s], an under-articulated [h], or as a case of total /s/ deletion. But this segmental description obscures systematic patterns of acoustic variation; variable speech phenomena are more accurately described by computer-based, instrumental measures of subsegmental speech sounds. On the basis of interviews with both monolingual Spanish and Spanish-English bilinguals that includes both Latin American-born and U.S.-born speakers, this study will provide instrumental phonetic descriptions of 20,000 tokens of syllable-final Spanish /s/, calculating, for each token, a subsegmental description in terms of duration in milliseconds and frequency in hertz. The study will include detailed specifications of language-internal and socio-demographic predictor variables of these tokens. The societal impact of the study of variability stems from the evidence it provides for the systematicity of linguistic behavior in all speakers, irrespective of income, education, citizenship, or bilinguality. Participants in the present study range over all these social categories. Consequently, a more exact understanding of their speech sheds light broadly on the most widely spoken minority language in American society and the most frequently taught foreign language in American schools. The study thus contributes to building a truer, more accurate conception of the sociolinguistic landscape in American immigrant and minority communities, in American schools, and in U.S. society as a whole.