2 - Sociophonetics and Its Methods

Summary

Chapter 2 focuses on methodological concerns within sociophonetics.The chapter presents an overview of phonetic methods as they relate to sociophonetic inquiry and highlights key points of departure in the methodological approach to and analysis of sociophonetic data.It begins with a general overview of the key concepts and approaches from both phonetics and sociolinguistics, and also discusses some of the major methods by which sociophonetic research is undertaken. The investigation of two kinds of segmental features, vowels and sibilants, is emphasized in order to explicate many of the central methods.The chapter draws from some of the foundational sociolinguistic as well as more recent experimental studies to connect methodological approaches in phonetics to growing research interests in examining social factors.As well, the chapter delves into not just acoustic but also auditory approaches, looking at how research on speech processing is an increasingly important part of the sociophonetic landscape.As we end the chapter, we provide an overview of some of the methods used in recent sociophonetic work on speech perception.