aspiration in Andalusian Spanish

16 Pages·2017·0.61 MB·English

JournalofLinguisticGeography(2018)6,40–55. ©CambridgeUniversityPress2018 ORIGINAL RESEARCH
doi:10.1017/jlg.2018.4
Perception of speaker age and speaker origin in a
sound change in progress: The case of /s/-aspiration
in Andalusian Spanish
HannaRuch*
URPPLanguageandSpace,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
Thispaperaddressesthequestionwhetherlistenerspossesssociolinguisticknowledgeofregionalvariationinasound
changeaffecting/s/+ voicelessstopsequencesinAndalusianSpanish.WetestedwhetherspeakersfromSevilleand
Granada were perceived as more Sevillian-sounding and as younger when a stimulus contained the novel phonetic
variant,apost-aspiratedstop.Word-medialsyllable-final/s/wasmanipulatedinsuchawaythattwostimuliofthesame
speakerdifferedonlyinwhethertheycontainedpre-aspiration([eh.ˈtaŋ.ko])orpost-aspiration([e.ˈthaŋ.ko]).Andalusian
listenersratedthesamespeakerasyoungerandasmoreSevillian-soundingwhenthestimuluscontainedapost-aspirated
stop.Therecognitionofaspeaker’sactualdialectwasparticularlyhighwhentheinnovativevariantwasembeddedina
Sevillespeaker’sspeech,confirmingearlierworkthatindexicalityiscontext-specific.TheresultssuggestthatAndalusian
listenerspossessknowledgeoftheregionalvariationandthesoundchangeandusethisvariationinsocialperception.
Keywords: Soundchange,indexicality,AndalusianSpanish,/s/-aspiration
1. INTRODUCTION 2. /S/-ASPIRATIONINSPANISH
Innumerousstudies,languagehasbeenshowntovary /s/-aspirationisprobablythemoststudiedphenomenon
according to a number of extralinguistic factors in Hispanic linguistics and refers to the lenition of
such as the age (Sankoff & Blondeau 2007; Labov, syllable-final/s/to[h]ortoitscompleteelision(e.g.gatos
Rosenfelder &Fruehwald2013)andregionaloriginof ‘cats’ [ˈga.toh]). /s/-aspiration can be described as
thespeaker(Glaser2013;Grieve,Speelman&Geeraerts debuccalisation of the alveolar fricative and is not only
2013),amongmanyothers.Fromperceptionstudies,on wide-spreadamongSpanishvarieties,butalsooccursin
the other hand, we know that listeners draw upon otherRomancelanguages(Solé2010).Lenitionofsyllable-
linguistic variation to infer social information about final /s/ is considered to be one of the main linguistic
the speaker. For instance, in experiments on dialect featuresforadivisionoftheSpanish-speakingworldinto
perception,listenerswereabletolocalise–moreorless dialectareas(SamperPadilla2011;Canfield1981;Lipski
precisely – the regional origin of a speaker (Purnell, 1994).Alargenumberofvariationiststudieshavefound
Idsardi & Baugh 1999; Clopper & Pisoni 2004), that syllable-final /s/ in Spanish varies according to
and listeners of American English ascribed different demographic variables of the speaker, e.g. with social
social attributes to a speaker depending on her/his class (López Morales 1983) or gender (Fontanella de
realisation of the variable -ING in English (Campbell- Weinberg 1973) as well as with speech style (Lafford
Kibler2009). 1986).Giventhisgeographicandsociolinguisticvariation
Inthepresentstudywedrawuponthesefindingsto in the production of syllable-final /s/, it is perhaps not
investigateifspeakersoftwoparticulardialectalareas surprisingthatlistenersusethisvariabletogeographically
of Spanish possess linguistic awareness of a sound andsociallycategoriseaspeaker(seeSection3).
changeinprogress.Wewillshowthatthemanipulation
of a fine-phonetic consonantal detail, the syllable-final
2.1 /s/-aspirationinAndalusianSpanish
/s/eitherrealisedasaspirationprecedingorfollowing
avoicelessstop,isabletoshiftthelisteners’judgements AndalusianSpanishisspokeninthemostsouthernpart
aboutthespeaker’sageandregionoforigin.Ourstudy ofcontinentalSpain,inAndalusia.Themostimportant
demonstratesthatlistenersfrombothvarietiespossess characteristics of Andalusian Spanish that separate it
detailed knowledge of the sound change, with which from the Northern Spanish varieties are phonetic/
theirexplicitanswersareonlypartlyconsistent. phonological,themostprominentonebeingthelenition
of coda consonants – including /s/ – and seseo/ceceo.
The latter refers to the pronunciation of standard
*Addressforcorrespondence:URPPLanguageandSpace,University
ofZurich,Freiestr.16,8032Zürich,Switzerland,[email protected] Spanish /s/ and /θ/ as [s] (seseo) or [θ] (ceceo),
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Perceptionofspeakerageandspeakerorigin 41
respectively,andisseenasbeingtheresultofamergerof normbyunmergingceceoandadoptingthenorthernnorm,
thefourmedievalsibilants/ts/,/dz/,/z/,and/s/by distinción.Atanationallevel,AndalusianSpanishisgen-
deaffrication and devoicing (Penny 2000). Although erally considered to be a stigmatized variety (Snopenko
manyAndalusianfeaturescanbefoundalloverAnda- 2007), although this seems to have changed in the last
lusia and beyond, a division into Eastern and Western decadesaswell(Gallego&Rodríguez2012;Turner2015).
Andalusianvarietiesaccordingtophonetic/phonologi- Apart from vowel lowering mentioned above,
cal, morphological, and lexical features is possible phonetic consequences of /s/-lenition include the
(Mondéjar1991).InEasternvarieties,vowelspreceding lengthening of following consonants (e.g. isla ‘island’
alenited/s/aregenerallylowered,orfrontedinthecase [ˈi(h).lːa]) (Alvar 1955; Mondéjar 1991). For /sp, st,
of/a/(e.g.patos‘ducks’[ˈpa.tɔh]),aphenomenonwhich sk/-sequences, the emergence of post-aspiration as a
is often associated with vowel harmony (e.g. los monos resultof/s/-lenitionhasrecentlybeendocumentedfor
‘the monkeys’ [lɔ ˈmɔ.nɔ]; Narbona, Cano & Morillo WesternAndalusianvarieties(Torreira2007a;Torreira
2003; Henriksen 2017). Ceceo and seseo occur in both 2007b; Torreira 2012; O’Neill 2010; Parrell 2012). In
Eastern and Western varieties, but in the last decades, wordssuchasresto‘rest’,theaspirationresultingfrom
Easternvarietieshavebeenshowntoconvergetowards /s/-lenition is increasingly realised as aspiration
standard Spanish and therefore to increasingly distin- following([ˈre.tho];post-aspiration),insteadofpreceding
guishbetween/s/and/θ/(distinción;MoyaCorral& thestop([ˈreh.to];pre-aspiration).
García Wiedemann 1995; Villena Ponsoda et al. 1995;
Moreno2007).Thistendencyseemstobelessmarkedfor
2.2 Soundchangein/sp,st,sk/
Westernvarieties(VillenaPonsoda2008,butseeGarcía-
Amaya;Regan2017forfindingsonJerezdelaFrontera Thehypothesisofasoundchangeinprogressfrompre-
and Huelva Spanish). /s/-lenition to [h] or [∅] is very aspiration to post-aspiration (e.g. [ˈreh.to] → [ˈre.tho])
wide-spread in Andalusia, and in Seville (Western was addressed in an apparent-time study (Ruch &
Andalusia) even used in formal situations by speakers Harrington 2014; Ruch & Peters 2016). By analysing
with a university degree (Carbonero Cano 1982). In isolated words spoken by 24 speakers from Seville
Granada(EasternAndalusia),olderspeakerswithahigh and 24 from Granada it was found that younger
educationdegreeseemtofavourthefullalveolarfrica- speakers (age range 20-36 years) produced a
tive[s]incertaincontexts(TejadaGiráldez2015). significantlylongerpost-aspirationthanolderspeakers
This shows that Eastern and Western Andalusian (agerange55-79years)inwordswithintervocalic/sp,
Spanishnotonlydifferaccordingtolinguistic,butalso st, sk/ (e.g. pestaña ‘eyelash’ or espalda ‘back’). This
accordingtotheirsociolinguisticstatusandtheorienta- apparent-time difference in post-aspiration duration
tionofspeakerstowardsthenorthern,asopposedtothe wasmoremarkedamongSevillethanamongGranada
regional, southern norm. “The urban variety of Seville speakers. Pre-aspiration was shorter in younger
(normasevillana)isacceptedasamodelofpronunciation than in older speakers, but did not significantly differ
forwesternvarieties,butthisregionaltrendofprestige between Seville and Granada Spanish. Words with
does not reach eastern varieties” (Villena Ponsoda intervocalic /p, t, k/ (e.g. etapa ‘stage’, separa ‘to
2008:144), which are instead oriented towards the separate’, 3rd p. sg.), in contrast, were consistently
northern norm. Given their different sociolinguistic produced with a short voice onset time (i.e. without
status, eastern varieties seem to converge towards the post-aspiration)inbothvarieties.
northernstandard,butatthesametimeconservesocially Ruch&Harrington(2014)andRuch&Peters(2016)
unmarked southern features, including the lenition of concludedthatasoundchangeinwhichpre-aspiration
syllable-final consonants (Villena Ponsoda 2008; isfadingandpost-aspirationisincreasinggraduallyis
Hernández-Campoy & Villena-Ponsoda 2009; Moya taking place not only in Seville, but also in Granada
Corraletal.2014;VillenaPonsoda&VidaCastro2017). Spanish. Their results are in line with O’Neill (2010)
Thesedifferenttendenciescanbeexplainedwithdemo- who observed that, from an areal point of view, post-
graphicandstructuraldifferencesbetweenEasternand aspiration in /sp, st, sk/ was successively increasing
Western Andalusia (Villena Ponsoda et al. 2003). With whenmovingfromWestern(Cádiz,Seville)toEastern
Seville, Western Andalusia has a prominent cultural, Andalusia(Granada,Jaén).Post-aspiration,alongstop
social,andpoliticalcentre,andtheurbanSevillevariety closure,andaffricationinthecaseof/st/havefurther
(norma sevillana) has high prestige. In contrast, no been documented for Malaga Spanish (Vida Castro
equivalent centre exists in Eastern Andalusia. As men- 2004;VidaCastro2015).
tioned above, recent research showed that tendencies Takentogether,thesefindingssuggestthatthesound
towardsthestandardvarietyexistinWesternAndalusia change from pre- to post-aspiration in /sp, st, sk/-
too. Jerez (García-Amaya 2008) and Huelva Spanish sequences first started in Western varieties and is now
(Regan 2017) strongly converge towards the northern spreadingfromWesterntoEasternAndalusianSpanish.
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
42 HannaRuch
TodateitremainsuncleartowhatextentSevillianand Pacheco 2014) or lay persons’ mental representations of
Granadianspeakersareawareofthissoundchange.Our dialectregions.MorenoFernández&MorenoFernández
own informal observations during fieldwork suggest (2002) asked residents in Madrid how differently they
thatsomespeakershaveknowledgeofthesoundchange thinkpeoplespeakindifferentareasofSpain.Andalusian
inthedentalcontext,wherethestopreleaseissometimes –togetherwithCanarian,ExtremeñoandMurcian,allof
affricated (e.g. [retso]; Moya Corral 2007; Ruch 2012). themvarietiesspokeninsouthernSpain–wereconsidered
Chariatte(2015)reportsonMalagaspeakers’comments tobethemostdifferent.Allofthesevarietiespresent/s/-
regarding [ts], who claim this variant to be typical for lenition, which is probably crucial for their status as
Malaga Spanish. In a vivid discussion in a forum on “different”fromtheperspectiveofMadridspeakers.
WordReference.com, some users state this sound has Researchonthecontributionofspecificlinguisticfea-
originatedinSeville,whileothersvehementlynegateits turestotherecognitionofSpanishdialectsismorescarce.
existence:Losiento,peroyonoheoídoenmividaesesonido Boomershine(2006)testedhowlistenersofPuertoRican
quecomentas.‘Iamsorry,butinmylifeIhavenotheard and Mexican Spanish identified a stimulus containing
thesoundyoumentioned.’ syllable-final/r/,syllable-final/s/orword-final/n/as
belonging to their own or another dialect. The partici-
3. PHONETICVARIATIONANDINDEXICALITY pantsofbothdialectsweremostaccurateindialectcate-
Indexical linguistic features can broadly be defined as gorisationwhenthestimuluscontainedsyllable-final/s/.
Thesocialinterpretationoflinguisticvariationisnot
thosefeaturesofspokenlanguagethatvarywithextra-
alwaysinlinewiththeactualdistributionofvariantsin
linguisticfactors.Togetherwithotherkindsoflinguistic
speechproduction,butcanbeinfluencedbystereotypes
variation,phoneticvariationisavailabletospeakersfor
andlinguisticideologies.Delforge(2012)showedhow
theconstructionofsocialidentity(Eckert2008;Foulkes,
participants from Cusco associated vowel devoicing
Scobbie&Watt2010).
with rural Peruvian and not with Cusco Spanish,
Asalreadymentioned,indexicalvariationisalsoused
although only a few generations ago vowel devoicing
by listeners to geographically and socially situate a
was still common in Cusco Spanish. Babel (2014)
speaker.Recentworksuggeststhattheindexicalfunction
describes for Bolivian Spanish how beliefs about dif-
ofalinguisticvariableisnotstable,butmaybeinterpreted
ferentphoneticformsofthediscoursemarkerpues–[ps]
indifferentwaysdependingonthesocialandthelinguistic
as typical for highlanders, [pweh] as typical for
context in which it is heard. In Campbell-Kibler (2011)
lowlanders–maydivergesubstantiallyfromtheactual
some phonological variables were found to consistently
distributionofthesevariantsinproduction.
affect ratings across conditions, while others interacted
withthespecificlinguisticcontextandtheregionalaccent Walkeretal.(2014)usedcross-splicedstimulitotest
how syllable-final /s/ produced as either [s] or [h]
ofthespeaker.Levon(2007)showedthatmasculinityand
affects how a speaker is evaluated socially, and how
sexualityratingswereaffectedwhensibilantdurationand
social evaluations vary according to the dialect of the
pitch range were manipulated in a recording previously
listener – Puerto Rican or Mexican Spanish. In Puerto
judgedasgay-sounding.Whenembeddedinarecording
RicanSpanish,/s/-weakeningisverycommon;innon-
originallyratedasstraight-sounding,themanipulationof
coastalMexicanSpanish,onthecontrary,[s]isthemost
the same two variables did not affect the judgements.
frequentandsociallymoreprestigiousvariant.Although
Podesva et al. (2015) found that ratings of American
the direction of the answers was the same for the two
politicians were not only affected by the manipulated
listener groups,interactionsbetween the speaker’sand
phonological variable (released or unreleased /t/), but
also by a politician’s more general use of the phonetic thelistener’soriginsuggestedthatlistenersconsiderthe
regional origin of the speaker when rating a phonetic
variants and her/his identity. The indexicality of a
variantaccordingtoitssocialstatus.
linguistic variant is considered to be constantly con-
Thereviewedliteratureunderlinestheimportantrole
structed and re-constructed by speakers and listeners in
of syllable-final /s/ as a social-indexical variable in
interactionandaccordinglycanacquiredifferentmeanings
Spanish.Allthesestudies,however,dealwithvariants
whenusedandheardinnewcontexts(Eckert2008).
of/s/–fullalveolarfricative[s]vs.lenited/s/([h]or
Tocontextualisethepresentexperiment,thefocusofthe
[∅]). In the present experiment for the first time more
followingliteraturereviewfallsonperceptionofregional
fine-grainedvariationof/s/-lenition,namelypre-and
origininSpanish,andonageperceptionmoregenerally.
post-aspiratedstops,willbeused.
3.1 PerceptionofaSpeaker’sRegionalOriginin
Spanish 3.2 PerceptionofSpeakerAgeCross-Linguistically
Several studies have investigated attitudes towards dif- Listenershavebeenshowntoquiteaccuratelyestimate
ferent Spanish varieties (e.g. Alfaraz 2014; Chiquito & aspeaker’sagefromtheacousticsignal(forreviews,see
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Perceptionofspeakerageandspeakerorigin 43
Nagao2006;Moyse2014).Giventhatparticipantswere If native speakers of Granada and Seville Spanish
less accurate in backward than in forward played possess knowledge of the age- and dialect-specific
samples (Ptacek & Sander 1966), it is clear that voice distribution of pre- and post-aspirated stops, they are
characteristics alone do not suffice to accurately expected to associate these phonetic variants with the
pinpoint the age of a speaker. Apart from voice respective speaker groups. This is tested by asking
characteristics, a phonetic cue to speaker age is listeners of Andalusian Spanish to rate the regional
segmentdurationduetoagenerallyslowerarticulation accent and estimate the age of the speaker for each
rateinelderlyspeakers(Harnsbergeretal.2008). stimulus on a visual anologue scale. The following
Further potential sources of phonetic differences hypotheseswillbetested:
between older and younger persons are age-grading
H1: In a stimulus with a post-aspirated stop, the
(Wagner 2012), a change in linguistic ideologies, and
speaker will be rated as having a more Sevillian-
sound change. Changing linguistic ideologies may
like accent than in a stimulus that contains a
result in apparent-time differences, for instance, when
pre-aspiratedstop.
certainformshavebeen“enregistered”tosignalplace
identity(Johnstone,Andrus&Danielson2006)orsocial H2: If a stimulus contains a post-aspirated stop, the
class (Delforge 2012) and, as a result, are more or less speaker will be estimated as being younger than
often used by younger speakers. Completed or whenthestimuluscontainsapre-aspiratedstop.
on-going sound change, finally, may also result in
Aslistenersseemtobesensitivetolinguisticfeatures
phonetic differences between older and younger
thatdifferfromtheirowndialect(Siegel2010:62)itis
speakers(Baileyetal.1991;Labov2001).
expected that Granada listeners are more sensitive to
Veryfewstudieshaveusedageperceptiontoassess
the post-aspirated variants and that their answers are
the question of whether a sound change in progress is
shifted to a greater extent towards “Sevillian”.
beingnoticedbylisteners.Walker(2007)showedthatthe
Andalusians who live in Seville can be assumed to be
manipulationoftheMOUTHdiphthongandword-final
morefrequentlyexposedtoSevillespeech–wherethe
/t/isabletoshiftthelisteners’perceptionsofageand
age-dependent differences in post-aspiration duration
socialclassofaspeaker.Hay,Warren&Drager(2006)
aremoremarked–andarethereforehypothesisedtobe
found that in a merger-in-progress in New Zealand
more sensitive to these differences than listeners who
Englishthecategory-boundarybetweenthetwovowels
live in Granada. These assumptions are phrased in
that were merged for younger, but not for older
Hypotheses3and4:
speakers,wasshiftedasafunctionofperceivedspeaker
age. Similar effects were found by Koops, Gentry & H3:Theeffectofphoneticvariantondialectperception
Pantos(2008)usingeye-tracking,andbyDrager(2010) isgreaterforGranadathanforSevillelisteners
forvowelscurrentlyundergoingachainshift.
H4:Theeffectofphoneticvariantonageperceptionis
Taken together, these studies provide evidence that
greaterforSevillethanforGranadalisteners
listeners have knowledge of apparent-time differences
occurring in their own variety, and that they use this Further analyses will be carried out to investigate
knowledgeinsocialandinspeechperception. how the effect of phonetic variant interacts with the
othercuestoregionaloriginandagethatarepresentin
theacousticsignal.
3.3 AimsandHypotheses
ThepresentstudyaskswhetherspeakersofAndalusian 4. METHOD
Spanish possess knowledge of the age-specific and
4.1 Stimuli
regional variation occurring in their variety. More
specifically, we test if the realisation of /s/+voiceless Isolated words were used to create the audio stimuli.
stop as post-aspirated stop [Ch] shifts a listener’s age Thesewordshadbeenrecordedaspartofaproduction
judgement of the speaker towards younger and corpusandcontained/s/ + voicelessstopsequencesin
towardsSevillian.Thisisdonebymanipulatingnatural intervocalic position (e.g. espanto, estanco, pescado; for
stimulicomingfromyoungerandolderspeakersfrom details, see Ruch & Harrington 2014; Ruch & Peters
Granada and Seville. We manipulated the phonetic 2016).Tofacilitatetheacousticmanipulationofpre-and
variant of /s/ + voiceless stop without changing the post-aspiration duration for the present study, 34
many other cues in the speech signal potentially tokensthatcontainedbothpre-andpost-aspiration(e.g.
indicating a speaker’s age and regional origin. This espada [eh.ˈpha.ða]) were selected from the production
procedurewillallowtoinvestigatehowthecontext(i.e. corpusmentionedabove.
ayoungeroranoldervoice;aSevillianoraGranadian DurationmanipulationwasachievedwithPSOLAin
soundingspeaker)interactswiththephoneticvariant. Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2013) using the Akustyk
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
44 HannaRuch
plugin (Plichta 2012). The 34 selected baseline tokens triplet (X) was more similar to the first (A) or to the
camefrom24differentspeakerswhowereeitheryoung second(B).Thestimuliofapairwere presentedoncein
(between20and36yearsold)orold(olderthan55years), each possible combination (ABB, BAB, BAA, ABA). The
and either from Seville or from Granada. The baseline proportionofcorrectanswersrangedfrom0.48to0.90.For
tokensthusnaturallycontainedotheracousticcuestothe theperceptionexperimentonlythe18stimulipairswitha
regional origin (e.g. vowel quality) and the age of the valueabove0.66wereused.Thedetailsontheacousticsof
speaker (e.g. fundamental frequency or voice quality). theselectedstimuliaresummarisedinAppendix1.
Importantly,onlythedurationofpre-andpost-aspiration Inadditiontothe18selectedstimulipairs,19fillerswere
and the duration of the oral stop closure were manipu- chosen from the same production corpus. Fillers were
latedtoobtaintwovariantsfromeachbasistoken. isolated words, each produced by a different speaker,
Togeneratethepre-aspiratedvariant,pre-aspiration either a younger or an older person from Granada or
duration was extended to ca. 15 ms for /sp/ and to Seville, and did not contain any /s/+voiceless stop
40msfor/sk/,andpost-aspirationwasshortenedtoca. sequence (e.g. etapa ‘stage’ [e.ˈta.pa], tienen ‘to have’, 3rd
20ms.Afterlengtheningpre-aspirationandshortening person sg.,[ˈtje.nen]).The fulllist offillers is includedin
post-aspiration,thestopclosurewaslengthenedinsuch Appendix 2. The intensity of the fillers was amplified to
awaythatthetotaldurationofthe/s/ + stopsequence 60dB,andfillerswereduplicatedtogeneratefillerpairs.
wasthesameasintheoriginallyproducedtoken.This Table1containsasummaryofthedemographicdataofthe
is important because total /sC/-duration has been speakersofwhomthestimuliandfillershadbeenselected.
foundtobeverysimilaracrossagegroupsinGranada
andSevilleSpanish,independentlyfromthedurationof
4.2 Experiment
pre- and post-aspiration (Ruch & Peters 2016). The
post-aspiratedvariantwasgeneratedbyshorteningthe The 2 (phonetic variants)×18 (baseline tokens)=36
pre-aspiration to 0, extending the post-aspiration to aspirationstimuliandthe2(equalvariants)×19(base-
50-60ms(longerforvelar,andshorterforbilabialstops; linetokens)=38fillers(74stimulicomingfromatotalof
seeAppendix1fordetails),and,again,lengtheningthe 36speakers)wereembeddedinarandomisedorderin
closure duration in such a way that the total /sC/- an online perception experiment using Soscisurvey.de
durationwasthesameasinthebasistoken. (Leiner2013).Therandomisationwasorganisedinfour
Thisprocedurewasrepeatedforeachofthe34basis blockstomakesurethatthetwostimuliofapairnever
tokenstogenerateatotalof34stimulipairs.Fig.1dis- occurredoneafteranother.
playsthewaveformandspectrogramofastimuluspair. Each stimulus or filler was presented on one page
The newly generated stimuli were then amplified to togetherwithitsorthographictranscription(seeFig.2),
60dB(usingexactlythesamefactorforbothstimuliofa
pair).AnativespeakerofSevilleSpanishwhousedto Table 1. Demographic data of the speakers from whom the basis
liveinGranadaforseveralyearscheckedthestimulifor tokensfor generationoftheaspirationstimuli(left) andthefillers
naturalness. (right)werechosen.
To make sure that the two stimuli of a pair were
perceptually distinct enough, an ABX perception test Aspirationstimuli Fillers
was conducted using the online tool Percy (Draxler
Granada Seville Granada Seville
2011). 16 listeners of Andalusian Spanish (age range:
27-38years)decidedwhetherthethirdstimuluswithina Age female male female male female male female male
<50 2 4 5 1 2 1 2 4
Pre-aspirated variant Post-aspirated variant ≥50 1 0 2 2 4 2 2 2
total 7 10 9 10
estanco
15. ¿Qué acento dirías que tiene esta persona?
¿Cuántos años dirías que tiene?
granadino sevillano
p e h t a a p e th a a
joven (20 años) (80 años) mayor
Figure1.Waveformandspectrogramofastimuluspairthat
hasbeengeneratedbyreducingpost-aspirationdurationand Figure2.Screenshotoftheexperiment.Atthetopofthe
lengtheningpre-aspiration(left),andreducingpre-aspiration page,theorthographicform(estanco)ofthestimulusappears;
andlengtheningpost-aspiration(right).Theexamplecomes atthebottom,thetwovisualanaloguescalesforaccentand
froma71yearoldfemalespeakerwhogrewupinSeville. ageratings.
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Perceptionofspeakerageandspeakerorigin 45
andparticipantscouldlistentothestimulusbyclicking 5.1 Effectofphoneticvariant
on “play” as many times as they wanted. They
wereaskedtolistentothestimulusandthenanswerthe Fig.3showsthedensitycurvesforthedialectanswers
questions “What accent doyou think this person has? according to the phonetic variant (pre- vs. post-aspi-
How old do you think he/she is?” by clicking rated)andalistener’sorigin(Granadavs.Seville).The
onavisualanaloguescaleandmovingthecursorfreely densitycurvedisplaysforeachrangeontheratingscale
to where they thought would fit best; between (x-axis) the likelihood (y-axis) that a listener put the
“Granadian”and“Sevillian”forthefirst,andbetween cursorinthisrangewhenratingastimulus.Thebimo-
“young (20 years)” and “old (80 years)” for the dal distribution shows the tendency of the listeners
secondquestion. towardstheextremesofthescale,eithermoreSevillian
Demographicdatawerecollectedatthebeginningof or more Granadian-sounding. The fact that the dark
theexperiment.Afterlisteningtothe74audiofilesand and the light grey areas do not completely overlap
estimating the speaker’s accent and age for each of indicates that dialect ratings were influenced by the
them, participants were invited to answer questions phoneticvariant:bothlistenergroupsweremorelikely
abouttheirstrategiesforrecognisingtheageandorigin to rate a stimulus as more Seville-sounding when it
of the speaker, and whether any of the speakers containedapost-aspiratedstop,whichisapparentfrom
soundedfamiliartothem.Thecompletionofthewhole the higher density under the dark curve at the right
experiment took about 20 minutes and participants edgeoftheplots.
werepaidfortheirtime. ForthestatisticsthedatafromFig.3wereaveraged
overlistener(83levels)andphoneticvariant(twolevels:
pre-aspiration, post-aspiration), resulting in two mean
4.3 Participants
valuesperlistener.Fig.4showsthe aggregateddialect
The listeners were recruited via acquaintances ratingsbySevilleandGranadalistenerstopre-andpost-
oftheauthorthroughsocialmediaandwordofmouth. aspirated stimuli. A repeated measures ANOVA, with
112personsparticipatedintheexperiment.Thedataof thelistener’sdialectasabetween-subjectsfactorandthe
12subjectswereremovedbecausetheydidnotgrowup phonetic variant as a within-subjects factor, confirmed
in Granada/Seville or because at the time of the the effect of phonetic variant (F[1,81]=45.7, p<0.001),
experimenttheyhadbeenlivingoutsidethetwocities but showed no effect of the listener’s dialect and no
for more than three years. The data of 17 further interactionbetweenthetwofactors.Thestatisticsthere-
listeners was removed because they indicated having fore confirmed H1 that post-aspirated variants were
recognisedoneorseveralofthespeakers.Theremain- rated as sounding more Seville-like. The effect of the
ing83listenerswereagedbetween16and72(median: phoneticvariantdidnotdifferbetweenthetwolistener
29) years; 45 were female and 38 were male. Table 2 groups, thus contradicting H3 that Granada listeners
shows the distribution of the listeners according to wouldbemoresensitivetothephoneticdifference.
regionoforiginandgender. Fig.5showstheeffectofphoneticvariant(pre-/post-
aspiration)ontheperceivedageforGranadaandSeville
listeners. For both listener groups age judgements are
slightly left-shifted when the stimulus contains a post-
5. RESULTS
aspirated stop, as compared to stimuli with a pre-
In5.1theeffectofthephoneticvariantonageanddia- aspiratedstop.Thiseffectseemstobemoremarkedfor
lect perception ispresented. In5.2additional analyses Seville than for Granada listeners. Fig. 6 visualises the
are presented to investigate how the phonetic variant averagedageratingsforeachphoneticvariantandeach
interactswiththecontextinwhichitisoccurs,i.e.,the listener. A repeated measures ANOVA, with the aver-
speaker’s voice and other phonetic cues to age and aged age ratings as the dependent variable, a listener’s
regionalorigin. dialectasbetween-subjectsfactorandphoneticvariantas
a within-subject factor, showed a significant effect of
Table2.Distributionofthelistenersintheperceptionexperiment phonetic variant (F[1,81]=76.0, p<0.001) on the per-
accordingtodemographicvariables. ceived speaker age, a significant interaction between a
listener’s dialect and phonetic variant (F[1,81]=4.4,
Listenerorigin p<0.05), but no effect of a listener’s dialect. The test
therefore confirmed H2 stating that speakers are esti-
Gender Granada Seville
matedasbeingyoungerwhenthestimuluscontaineda
post-aspirated stop, and H4 predicting that this effect
female 23 22
male 16 22 would be more marked for Seville than for Granada
listeners.
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
46 HannaRuch
Listener’s region of origin
Granada Seville
0.015
0.010 Variant
sity post-aspiration
n
e
D pre-aspiration
0.005
0.000
0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100
Dialect judgment (1 = Granadian, 100 = Sevillian)
Figure3.Densitycurvesforthedialectratingsaccordingtothephoneticvariant(pre-vs.post-aspiratedstop).Distributionsare
shownseparatelyforGranada(leftpanel)andSevillelisteners(rightpanel).Lowvaluesonthex-axisstandfor“Granadian”,
highvaluesfor“Sevillian”ratings.
an within-subjectfactor.Asfordialectratings,thephonetic
evilli variant showed a significant effect in the expected
S
75 directionforallthreeplacesofarticulationanddidnot
ed dialect Variapnret-aspiration ipn<te0ra.0c5t;witdhenatlails:ten(eFr[’1s,8d2ia]l=ec5t6(.b2,ilabpia<l:0(.F0[011,8);2])v=e5la.3r:,
eiv 50 (F[1,82]=9.0, p<0.01). The effect of phonetic variant
Perc post-aspiration on age ratings was significant for the bilabial
(F[1,82]=23.4, p<0.001), but not the velar context
adian 25 (p=0.88).For/st/,asignificantinteractionwasfound
n
Gra between the aspiration variant and a listener’s dialect
Granada Seville (F[1,81]=7.5, p<0.01). Separate analyses for each
Listener’s region of origin listenergroupshowedthatageratingstopre-andpost-
Figure4.Boxplotsshowingthemeandialectratingper aspiratedstimulicontaining/st/significantlydiffered
phoneticvariantforeachlistener.Lowvaluesstandfora inbothgroups,butmoresignificantlysoinSevillethan
perceivedGranadianaccent,highvaluesforaperceived inGranadalisteners(GranadaF[1,38]=13.6,p<0.001;
Sevillianaccent. Seville:F[1,43]=54.8,p<0.001).
The more marked effect of phonetic variant in /st/
Additional analyses were conducted to test 1) thanin/sp,sk/isinlinewiththepreviousfindingsand
whetherthelisteners’responseswereaffectedbyplace informal observations described above. However, and
of articulation, and 2) how age and dialect responses more importantly so, the results suggest for the first
relatetoeachother. timethatnotonly/st/,butalso/sp/and/sk/possess
As mentioned in the Introduction, the listeners’ socio-indexicalmeaning.
knowledge of regional variation and change might In a next step, a statistical test will be conducted to
depend on the place of articulation of the /s/ + stop explore the relationship between age and dialect rat-
sequence.Inthefollowingitwillbetestedwhethernot ings. A linear mixed effect model was used with age
only /st/, but also /sp/ and /sk/ sequences carry rating as the dependent variable, dialect response, the
indexicalmeaning.Todoso,meanageandmeandia- phonetic variant, and a listener’s dialect as the fixed
lect ratings were calculated for each listener, place of factors and word, listener, and speaker as random
articulation,andphoneticvariant,resultinginsixmean factors. The residuals followed a normal distribution
valuesperlistener.AseparateANOVAwasconducted anddidnotshowauto-correlation,andthereforesatis-
foreachplaceofarticulationwithageordialectratings fied the model assumptions. Given that there were
as the dependent variable, a listener’s dialect as significant interactions between the phonetic variant
between-subject factor, and the phonetic variant as a and a listener’s dialect (χ2[2]=6.1, p<0.05) and
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Perceptionofspeakerageandspeakerorigin 47
Listener’s region of origin
Granada Seville
0.015
Variant
sity 0.010 post-aspiration
n
e
D
pre-aspiration
0.005
0.000
0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100
Perceived age (1 = young, 100 = old)
Figure5.Densitycurvesforthelisteners’ageratingsaccordingtothephoneticvariant.Theleftpanelshowsthedatafor
Granada,therightpanelforSevillelisteners.Lowvaluesonthex-axisstandfor“young”,highvaluesfor“old”ratings.
old speakersfromSevilleandGranada,theynaturallypro-
60 videdthelistenerwithanumberofothercues(e.g.vowel
qualityorvoicequality)tolocalisethespeaker.Theaim
ge 50 ofthesubsequentanalysesistocomparetheeffectofthe
a Variant
ved 40 pre-aspiration manipulatedphoneticvariantsagainstthestimuli’sother
Percei 30 post-aspiration adcoonuestbicyccuaelcsutloatianggehaonwd rwegelilonaaslpoeraigkienr.’sTdhiiaslewctillanbde
age was identified and how the proportion of correct
20 answers was influenced by the phonetic variant. The
g
oun listeners’ responses to the fillers, which were not
y
Granada Seville manipulated,willbeusedasabaseline.
Listeners
Figure6.Boxplotsshowingtheaveragedageratingsper Identificationofactualdialect
phoneticvariantforeachlistener.Lowvaluesindicatethe
speakerswereperceivedasyoung,highvalues,asold. Ina first step, the dialectresponses were convertedto
two nominal categories “Seville” and “Granada”.
between the phonetic variant and dialect response Responses with values from 45 to 55 were excluded
(χ2[2]=23.2, p<0.001), separate models were applied (527/6142 tokens; 8.6%). because they can be con-
to each combination of fixed factors. A significant sidered to represent a participant’s intention to mark
negativerelationshipbetweendialectresponseandage the middle of the scale (50). Values above 55 were
responseswasfoundforpost-aspiratedstimuliinboth assignedtothecategory“Seville”,andvaluesbelow45
Granada (χ2[1]=7.1, p<0.01) and Seville listeners tothecategory“Granada”.Thesecategorieswerethen
(χ2[1]=22.8,p<0.001),butnotforpre-aspiratedstimuli compared with the speaker’s actual origin and,
or fillers. According to the results, post-aspirated according to a match/non-match, converted into a
stimuli rated as more Sevillian sounding tended to be binarycorrect/falsevalue.
at the same time rated as younger. Therefore, they Several trends can be observed in Fig. 7, which dis-
showedtherelationshipthatwasexpectedbasedonthe playstheproportionofcorrectanswersforlistenersfrom
productionresults. Seville and Granada. First, the proportion of correct
answers on a whole was mostly above chance level
(>0.50), indicating that the listeners’ responses indeed
5.2 IdentificationofaSpeakers’ActualAgeand
wereaffectedbytheactualdialectofaspeaker.Second,
RegionalOrigin
listenerstendedtoassignafillertotheirowndialect,as
Given that the stimuli were created from words that indicated by the higher proportion of correct responses
originally had been produced by younger and older when the speaker’s matched the listener’s dialect.
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
48 HannaRuch
Listeners speaker), the proportion of correct answers was
Granada Seville
s 1.00 boosted. When the two types of cues did not match
wer (e.g. in a post-aspirated variant coming from a
ans 0.75 Variant Granadian speaker), dialect recognition was at chance
orrect 0.50 pproes-ta-assppiriaratitoionn level. For Sevillian participants, the presence of the
n c filler conservative or innovative phonetic variant in some
o
orti 0.25 cases even shifted the listener’s answers towards the
p
Pro 0.00 othercategory,indicatingthatthephoneticvariantcan
Granada Seville Granada Seville overweightheremainingcuestoregionalorigin.
Speaker's dialect
Recognitionofactualage
Figure7.Proportionofcorrectdialectcategorisations
displayedseparatelyforGranada(leftpanel)andSeville To see how a speakers’ actual age interacted with the
listeners(rightpanel),thedialectofthespeaker(x-axis)and
phoneticvariantpresentinthestimulus,thevalueson
thephoneticvariant(bars).
thevisualanaloguescale(VAS)wereconvertedtoyears
usingthefollowingformula1:
Andthird,amongtheaspirationstimuli,theproportion
ofcorrectanswerswashigherwhenthephoneticvariant ageyears=60=ð100=ageVASÞ+20
matchedthespeaker’sorigin,i.e.inpre-aspiratedstimuli
InFig.8theconvertedage-ratingsareplottedagainst
spoken by Granadians, and post-aspirated stimuli
aspeaker’sactualage.Apositiverelationshipbetween
spoken by Sevillians. Among Seville listeners, two bars
the actual and the perceived speaker age can be
representvaluesbelowchancelevelpreciselywherethe
observed for both listener groups. The figure further
stimuli contained a phoneticvariant that did not match
showsthatintheirratings,listenersunderestimatedthe
the remaining dialect cues in the acoustic signal:
age of old speakers, and overestimated that of young
pre-aspiratedvariantsproducedbySevillespeakers,and
speakers.Thistrendisconsistentwithearlierstudieson
post-aspiratedstopsbyGranadaspeakers.
age perception (Shipp & Hollien 1969; Harnsberger
TotestiftheobservedtrendsinFig.7aresignificant,
et al. 2008) and is likely due to a general “central
generalisedlinearmixedmodels(GLMM)wererun.A
tendency effect” in these kind of tasks (Moyse 2014:
firstmodelwiththebinarydialectresponse(Granada/
259). A linear mixed effect model with a speaker’s
Seville) as the dependent variable, phonetic variant
actual age and a listener’s dialect as fixed factors and
(3 levels: pre-aspirated, post-aspirated, filler), the
word,speakerandlistenerasrandomfactorsshoweda
speaker’s, and the listener’s origin as the fixed factors
significanteffectofaspeaker’sactualageonperceived
and word, listener, and speaker as random factors
age(χ2[1]=28.1,p<0.001).
showeda significantthree-way interaction (χ2[2]=6.6,
These additional analyses have shown that the
p<0.05).Separatemodelswereruntotesteachofthe
manipulatedphoneticvariantoperatednotinisolation,
observationsmadeabove.
but interacted with the other acoustic cues to age and
To assess whether dialect recognition was above
regional origin present in the stimulus. Overall, parti-
chance, a GLMM with the same random factors, but
cipants were more accurate in their age than in their
onlyaspeaker’sandalistener’sdialectasfixedfactors
dialectratings.Someeffectswerefoundthathadbeen
wasconducted.Thetestshowedasignificanteffectofa
observed in previous studies on age and dialect per-
speaker’s dialect (χ2[1]=13.1, p<0.001), confirming
ception,namelythetrendtowardsover-estimatingthe
that overall, listeners’ responses were affected by a
age of younger and under-estimating the age of older
speaker’s actual dialect and thus above chance. The
speakers, and the participants’ tendency towards
participants’ inclination to assign fillers to their own
assigning an ambiguous stimulus (filler) to their own
dialect was tested in a second GLMM with phonetic
dialect,similartoanown-agebias(Moyse,Beaufort&
variant and a listener’s dialect as fixed factors. Given
Brédart2014).
that there was a significant interaction between the
fixed factors (χ2[2]=21.7, p<0.001), post hoc Tukey
tests were conducted. They confirmed that Granada 6. DISCUSSION
and Seville participants significantly differed in their
6.1 Perceptionexperiment
responsestofillers(p<0.01),butnotintheiranswersto
pre-andpost-aspiratedstimuli. ThisstudyinvestigatedifnativespeakersofAndalusian
Onthewhole,aspeaker’sactualoriginsignificantly Spanishpossesslinguisticknowledgeofthegeographic
influenceddialectperception,andwhentheactualori- variation and a sound change which is currently
ginofthespeakermatchedthephoneticvariant(asin, affecting/s/+voicelessstopsequencesintheirvariety.
e.g., a post-aspirated variant coming from a Sevillian Phonetic variation in the aspiration of voiceless stops
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Perceptionofspeakerageandspeakerorigin 49
Listener’s region of origin
Granada Seville
80
ars) 60 Variant
e
e (y pre-aspiration
g
a
ed post-aspiration
v
ei
Perc 40 filler
20
20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80
Speaker’s actual age (years)
Figure8.Perceivedageinyears(y-axis)plottedagainsttheactualageofaspeaker(x-axis).
wasabletoshiftthelisteners’ratingsofspeakerageand the more a stimulus was rated as Sevillian-sounding,
dialect significantly: when the stimulus contained a the lower the age rating it received. This result was
post-aspirated stop (e.g. [e.ˈthaŋ.ko]), the same speaker found in both listener groups, but appeared to be sig-
was estimated as being younger and as more nificantonlyinstimuliwithpost-aspiration.Ontheone
Seville-sounding than when the stimulus contained a hand,thisfindingisinlinewiththeproductionstudies
pre-aspiratedstop(e.g.[eh.ˈtaŋ.ko]). (Ruch&Harrington2014;Ruch&Peters2016),where
Previous perception experiments on Spanish have post-aspiration was longer in young Sevillian than
usedalenited/s/(e.g.[eh.ˈtaŋ.ko])andthefullalveolar young Granadian speakers, and where pre-aspiration
fricative(e.g.[es.ˈtaŋ.ko])andhaveshownthatthesetwo didnotdifferbetweenthesetwogroups.Ontheother
variantspossesssocial-indexicalmeaning(Boomershine hand,thisresultcanbeinterpretedintermsofacoustic
2006;Walkeretal.2014).Thepresentstudyforthefirst andpossiblyalsosocialsalience.Post-aspirationcanbe
time has shown that not only /s/-lenition per se, but considered to be acoustically more salient than pre-
also more subtle phonetic variation within the lenited aspiration because it represents a noisy phase at the
variantspossesssocial-indexicalmeaning. syllableonsetbetweenacousticsilence(i.e.theoralstop
Byusingbothageanddialectratingsandincluding closure) and the following vowel, with abrupt transi-
listeners from two varieties, this study was able to tionsoneitherside.Incontrast,pre-aspirationoccursat
investigate whether the different stages of the sound the syllable offset and is characterised by gradient
change is reflected in the listeners’ responses. The fact transitionstoneighbouringsegments(Kingston1990).
thatSevillelisteners’ageratingsweretoagreaterextent Post-aspirationthusmeetsseveralacousticcriteriato
affectedbythephoneticvariantthanthoseofGranada be noticed more easily than pre-aspiration, which
listeners’ ratings further mirror the findings from howeverdonotsufficetomakepost-aspirationsocially
speech production (Ruch & Harrington 2014; Ruch & salient (see Auer 2014; Pharao et al. 2014). More
Peters2016)thatthesoundchangeismoreadvancedin importantly, post-aspirated stops represent the new,
SevillethaninGranadaSpanish.Accordingtothepro- innovativevariant.Given thatpre-aspirated stops still
duction data it is plausible to assume that our partici- occurinbothvarieties(Ruch &Peters2016)wehypo-
pantsfromSevilleareintheireverydaylifeexposedtoa thesise that they are less conspicuous to listeners than
more marked age-dependent difference in post- thenewvariant,andlesslikelytoacquiresocial-index-
aspiration duration, and thus likely to be more aware icalmeaning.Thiscouldexplainwhythelisteners’age
ofitthantheparticipantsfromGranada. and dialect responses are correlated in stimuli with
The different stage of the sound change in the two post-aspiration,butnotinsuchwithpre-aspiration.
speech communities was further apparent in a statis- Althoughoverall,thephoneticvariantsinthisstudy
ticalrelationshipbetweendialectandageratingstothe wereabletoshiftthelisteners’ageanddialectrespon-
same stimulus. Age and dialect responses were not ses, the linguistic context nonetheless appeared to be
independentfromeachother,butnegativelycorrelated: relevant.ThisisapparentintheresultsfromSection5.2
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2018.4 Published online by Cambridge University Press