Awareness and Control in Sociolinguistic Research

This book investigates our awareness and control of sociolinguistic features as they are embedded in social and grammatical systems.

Anna M. Babel (Edited by)

9781107420816, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 May 2019

303 pages, 33 b/w illus. 2 maps 28 tables
23 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

'In this important volume Anna M. Babel brings together scholars drawing on diverse methodologies (ethnographic, experimental, elicitation/interview) to demonstrate how themes of awareness and control that have been a central concern in the history of sociolinguistics have wide-reaching implications for integrating sociolinguistic research with sub-fields of theoretical and applied linguistics, and for interdisciplinary engagement with cognitive science, social psychology, and anthropology.' Mark A. Sicoli, Georgetown University, Washington DC

The topic of awareness and control is an elephant in the room in sociolinguistic research. To what extent are speakers aware of sociolinguistic variables? Are there different types or levels of awareness? Is 'control' of these variables a conscious or unconscious process, or is it some combination of the two? Are the variables we are aware of necessarily those we control, and vice versa? The extent to which speakers are aware of sociolinguistic information and use it strategically may drastically affect our understanding of the role that sociolinguistic cues play in the development of structural categories. This volume constitutes the first concerted effort to understand the nature of awareness and control using all the methodological and theoretical tools at our disposal. The contributors employ a variety of perspectives to address the relationship between awareness and control in sociolinguistic research.

Foreword John R. Rickford
Preface Anna M. Babel
1. Awareness, salience, and stereotypes in exemplar-based models of speech production and perception Katie Drager and Joelle Kirtley
2. Sounding Chinese and listening Chinese: awareness and knowledge in the laboratory Kevin B. McGowan
3. Awareness and acquisition of new dialect features Jennifer Nycz
4. Processing grammatical differences: perceiving versus noticing Lauren Squires
5. What it means to be an outsider: how exposure to regional variation shapes children's awareness of regional accents in their native language Erica Beck
6. Toward a cognitively realistic model of meaningful sociolinguistic variation Kathryn Campbell-Kibler
7. Place-linked expectations and listener awareness of regional accents Katie Carmichael
8. WHADDAYAKNOW NOW? Dennis R. Preston
9. Silence as control: shame and self-consciousness in sociolinguistic positioning Anna M. Babel
10. Theorizing salience: orthographic practice and the enfigurement of minority languages Nishaant Choksi and Barbra A. Meek
11. Sociolinguistic agency and the gendered voice: metalinguistic negotiations of vocal masculinization among female-to-male transgender speakers Lal Zimman
Index.

Subject Areas: Psycholinguistics [CFD], Sociolinguistics [CFB]