Doctoral Dissertation Research: Sociolinguistic Variation and Biracial Identity

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The 2010 U.S. census estimates that 9 million Americans identify as multiracial, and demographers observe that the number of individuals identifying as two or more races has increased significantly over the last 15 year. Multiracial Americans, especially black/white biracial Americans, are also increasingly visible in the public consciousness. Multiracial Americans may have personal, social, and/or cultural motivations to identify with and project different social and racial identities. Previous research has shown that the identity choices of multiracial Americans are often reflected in social practice though elements such as personal adornment and choice of friendship networks, but few scholars have examined the effects of these identity choices on linguistic practice. This dissertation project investigates racial identity through the lens of language, examining how Millennial generation men (ages 18-32) with one black parent and one white parent project their racial identities in conversations with white and black peers. Under the direction of Dr. Renee Blake, Nicole Holliday will collect conversational speech samples under varying interview conditions from members of the study group, and will perform a set of phonetic analyses on the collected samples. The analyses will focus on the stylistic variation in their use of certain suprasegmental features, such as intonation and rhythm, which appear to differ between African American English and Mainstream U.S. English. These features include the use of Fundamental Frequency (F0) range (including falsetto phonation), peak delay, and the number of pitch accents in comparable utterances. Understanding how these features work in style-shifting is important because research has demonstrated that listeners rely on linguistic information to make racial judgments about speakers and that this type of linguistic profiling has tangible consequences: individuals are often denied housing, employment, or other types of opportunities. The results of this study will shed light on how linguistic features are used to perceive and to convey an individual's racial identity.