Social and linguistic influences on the phonetic imitation of Southern American English vowels

This study investigated the effect of regional biases on phonetic imitation, specifically exploring imitation of Southern American English by Midwesterners in a lexical shadowing task. To manipulate the regional biases at play, participants received different information about the model talker’s regional origins. They were either told she was from the Midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio; the Southern locations of Eastern Kentucky or Savannah, Georgia; or nothing at all. After shadowing, participants completed a survey about their perceptions of the talker and her supposed region of origin. Vowel formant frequencies and trajectories were analyzed for imitation. Significant imitation was observed, although not all vowels were imitated equally. The survey revealed that the Southern locations differed in the biases associated with them, and that the Midwest was more socially desirable than the South. However, the survey responses were not predictive of imitative behavior. The vowel selectivity in imitation may be due to linguistic factors, such as the baseline distance between the model talker’s and participants’ vowels, or social factors such as the relative level of social stigma associated with the vowel variants. The results of this study suggest that imitation may be partly automatic but also influenced by certain language-external social information.