This study contributes to a growing body of research on the social meanings of linguistic variation with particular interest in the cognitive processes governing their emergence. Our research follows in the tradition of Labov et al.’s (2011) work on the sociolinguistic monitor, a cognitive mechanism hypothesized to track quantitative linguistic variation and prompt social evaluations. Previous research shows that L1 English listeners are sensitive to fre- quency variation, but it is unclear whether this also applies to L2 listeners. This study thus replicates Labov et al.’s (2011) original experiment in a context where English is primarily acquired through L2 instruction. .

Language change beyond the binary: T-glottaling in East Sussex

UKLVC14 2023 | Edinburgh

Lifespan change and sexuality: /s/, pitch and vowel space before and after coming out

Previous research on language and sexuality has explored a wide range of phonetic features and found many of these to correlate with different sexual identities. However, it remains unclear how sexuality is indexed before coming out as gay.

This study compares the evaluation of speech with the pragmatic marker you know to speech without any pragmatic markers. The comparison is based on a set of perception surveys, in which participants listened to manipulated audio stimuli and rated them on a series of scales. Results suggest that the classic prestige, solidarity and dynamism model is not suitable for the pragmatic marker you know.

The Heterogeneity of Sex-Based Categories: a Quantitative Acoustic Analysis of Phonetic Variation in Gay and Straight Speech

Ongoing PhD Project

Sex, Gender & Sexuality: A Quantitative Acoustic Analysis of /l/ Lenition in Southern British English

Voice Onset Time as an Index of Sexuality in Gay and Straight Speech

Paper presented at the Manchester Forum in Linguistics Conference, Manchester (2017)