Effects of Speaker Evaluation on Phonetic Convergence.

Abstract

Numerous studies have documented the phenomenon of phonetic convergence: the process by which speakers alter their productions to become more similar on some phonetic or acoustic dimension to those of their interlocutor. Though social factors have been suggested as a motivator for imitation, a relatively smaller body of studies has established a tight connection between extralinguistic factors and a speaker’s likelihood to imitate. The present study explores the effects of a speaker’s attitude toward an interlocutor on the likelihood of imitation for extended VOT. Experimental results show that the extent of phonetic convergence (and divergence) depends on the speaker’s disposition towards an interlocutor, but not on more “macro” social variables, such as the speaker’s gender.