Ethnic Speech Identification Experiments

For several years, Erik Thomas has been conducting speech identification experiments in conjunction with other NCLLP members and with Norman J. Lass of West Virginia University to determine what acoustic cues listeners use to distinguish African American voices from European American voices. This work was supported by NSF grant BCS-0213941, “Socio-Phonetic Cues Differentiating African American and European American Voices,” from 2002 to 2004. The results have shown that listeners access a variety of cues, including cues in segmental quality, prosody, and voice quality, for their identifications; that listeners are flexible in what cues they utilize, so that no one cue is crucial; that listeners may use different cues for male and female speakers; and that different groups of listeners may use different sets of cues, depending on their backgrounds. Several publications have resulted from this work:

Publications

Thomas, Erik R. Under Review. “Phonological and phonetic characteristics of AAVE.” Submitted to Language and Linguistics Compass.

Thomas, Erik R. Forthcoming. “Phonetic Properties of Linguistic Profiling in American English.” In John Baugh (ed.), Linguistic Profiling and Linguistic Human Rights.

Thomas, Erik R. 2005a. “Cues Used for Distinguishing African American and European American Voices.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117:2458.

Thomas, Erik R. 2002c. “Sociophonetic Applications of Speech Perception Experiments.” American Speech 77:115-47.

Thomas, Erik R., Norman J. Lass, and Jeannine Carpenter. Forthcoming. “Identification of African American Speech.” In Dennis R. Preston and Nancy Niedzielski (eds.), Reader in Sociophonetics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Thomas, Erik R., and Jeffrey Reaser. 2004. “Delimiting Perceptual Cues Used for the Ethnic Labeling of African American and European American Voices.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 8:54-86.

Thomas, Erik R., and Jeffrey Reaser. Forthcoming. An Experiment on Cues Used for Identification of Voices as African American or European American. In Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies (eds.), Language Variety in the South III. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.

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	Current Research Projects Explore our Field Sites Sociolinguistic Archive and Analysis Project (SLAAP) Dialect Awareness Curriculum Grant-Funded Research Ethnic Speech Identification Experiments For several years, Erik Thomas has been conducting speech identification experiments in conjunction with other NCLLP members and with Norman J. Lass of West Virginia University to determine what acoustic cues listeners use to distinguish African American voices from European American voices. This work was supported by NSF grant BCS-0213941, “Socio-Phonetic Cues Differentiating African American and European American Voices,” from 2002 to 2004. The results have shown that listeners access a variety of cues, including cues in segmental quality, prosody, and voice quality, for their identifications; that listeners are flexible in what cues they utilize, so that no one cue is crucial; that listeners may use different cues for male and female speakers; and that different groups of listeners may use different sets of cues, depending on their backgrounds. Several publications have resulted from this work: Publications Thomas, Erik R. Under Review. “Phonological and phonetic characteristics of AAVE.” Submitted to Language and Linguistics Compass. Thomas, Erik R. Forthcoming. “Phonetic Properties of Linguistic Profiling in American English.” In John Baugh (ed.), Linguistic Profiling and Linguistic Human Rights. Thomas, Erik R. 2005a. “Cues Used for Distinguishing African American and European American Voices.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117:2458. Thomas, Erik R. 2002c. “Sociophonetic Applications of Speech Perception Experiments.” American Speech 77:115-47. Thomas, Erik R., Norman J. Lass, and Jeannine Carpenter. Forthcoming. “Identification of African American Speech.” In Dennis R. Preston and Nancy Niedzielski (eds.), Reader in Sociophonetics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, Erik R., and Jeffrey Reaser. 2004. “Delimiting Perceptual Cues Used for the Ethnic Labeling of African American and European American Voices.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 8:54-86. Thomas, Erik R., and Jeffrey Reaser. Forthcoming. An Experiment on Cues Used for Identification of Voices as African American or European American. In Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies (eds.), Language Variety in the South III. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
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