Phonetic Accommodation Essay

Language is a primary distinguisher of social groups, of regional variation, and of attitude towards others; as such, a speaker’s language use is an emblem of their social identity. Phonetic accommodation, i.e, when a speaker varies their pronunciation with respect to an interlocutor, is a tool by which speakers can minimize or emphasize linguistic difference. Through phonetic convergence, this can highlight a shared social identity, or, through phonetic divergence, can designate contrast between one identity and another. Some have suggested that phonetic accommodation is an automatic, inevitable process, surmising that identity is subsequent to it, and not its cause (Trudgill, 2008). However, I will present evidence towards the contrary,

Labov (1963) documented new variance in pronunciation of diphthongs /ai/ and /au/ by locals with respect to seasonal visitors in Martha’s Vineyard; a local heritage identity appeared to influence pronunciation, and offered a contrast with the identity of visitors. It is often suggested that Labov’s study is a key example of the influence of identity on accommodation, but this belief is not unanimous: Trudgill (2008), instead, remains skeptical, arguing that dialect contact inevitably causes accommodation on the road to dialect mixture, with identity holding no role in the process. Accommodation, then, is a purely automatic process. However, Trudgill’s argumentation has spurred some to be critical of his analysis (Schneider, 2008), and has spawned experimentation offering counter-evidence (Babel, 2010). The consensus of those who disagree with Trudgill is plainly that social influences, including identity, have a role to play with respect to accommodation.

It should be noted that accommodation is a somewhat multifaceted term. Trudgill (2008) presumably refers to unconscious accommodation, by which speakers are unaware of the pronunciation change that is occurring; Cutler (2010) discusses conscious accommodation, through which speakers may associate themselves with a chosen identity. This process accounts for the preference of some youth to diverge towards African American

(2011) is the role of a speaker’s attitude towards the interlocutor. There are numerous examples in linguistics of participants being adamant or prideful about their social identity and language use (Pappas, 2008; Llamas et al., 2009); as accommodation acts to highlight shared identity or designate contrast, perhaps attitude towards interlocutors is the greater influence towards accommodation. Yu et al. (2013) found that participants who like a model speaker imitate them more. Likewise, Babel (2010) found that participants who held a positive implicit bias towards a model speaker showed a greater degree of convergence. Yet, implicit bias had a negative effect as well, wherein participants accommodated less towards a speaker they felt negatively towards. The negative attitude in this case concerned in- and out-group sentiments, but similar results have been found for racial bias as well (Babel,