Doctoral Dissertation Research: Changes in Intonation: Perception and Production

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

One of the most noticeable differences between the speech of different groups of people is their prosody, the rhythm and melody of their speech. People might say that different groups of people sound "sing song-y" or "talk too fast" or "sound loud." Or, they they might say that they can tell, for example, where they are from, or their race or ethnicity, based on the melody of their voice. However, differences in prosody, as well as how these differences might change over time, have not been studied as much as other linguistic differences. As it is known that people can use prosody to tell the race or ethnicity of a speaker, and use that information in a discriminatory way, understanding the nature of prosodic differences is important to combatting that discrimination. This project examines the prosody, specifically, the intonation (melodic patterns) of speakers in the Midwest. One important aspect that can cause differences in intonation is a speaker's first language. Moreover, if enough people in a community speak another language, either as a first language or heritage language, it can subtly change the sound of English in that community, even among people who don't speak that other language. These changes might fade away over time in speech production, but even if that happens, people in that community might still be able to understand, and imitate, those differences. Using both production and perception data gathered in Dayton, Ohio, Rachel Steindel Burdin, under the direction of Dr. Brian D. Joseph, will investigate these changes in the use and understanding of first and heritage language-influenced intonation. This project will not only give us insight into how intonation can change and into the processes that are in play in interactions between different languages, but it will also give us valuable insight into the nature of language contact and language change more generally.