Survey results from understudied linguistic communities
Presentation Type
Abstract
Faculty Advisor
Jonathan Howell
Access Type
Event
Start Date
25-4-2025 10:30 AM
End Date
25-4-2025 11:29 AM
Description
There exists a growing linguistic and ethnic diversity in the United States, which is home to under-represented varieties of American English. In order to investigate African-American English and Latine English, Dr. Jonathan Howell was awarded a NSF grant to compile a corpus to study these varieties. Given the complexities of speech and identity, we decided to let speakers self-identify. In reflection of the literature in the adjacent field of sociolinguistics, a survey was created, which asks open-ended questions about their experiences, allowing for detailed responses in a stereotype-free environment. This survey follows a map task experiment, where participants are given nearly identical maps and asked to find missing items by conversing with their partner. In the survey we asked questions regarding race, gender, age, sexuality, languages spoken, ESL experience, and demographic information surrounding their upbringing. We also prompted participants to discuss whether they thought they could tell other peoples’ race solely based on prosodic elements like pitch and intonation, as well as what they think their prosody gives away. We found that many participants came from areas that house a significant African-American/Latine population and that around half of the participants are bilingual. We also found that of the participants who said they could identify one’s ethnicity solely based on prosody, the majority of them said that their ethnicity could not be identified by voice. We also found that participants who had taken linguistics courses were more likely to say that they could identify someone's ethnicity by their intonation.
Survey results from understudied linguistic communities
There exists a growing linguistic and ethnic diversity in the United States, which is home to under-represented varieties of American English. In order to investigate African-American English and Latine English, Dr. Jonathan Howell was awarded a NSF grant to compile a corpus to study these varieties. Given the complexities of speech and identity, we decided to let speakers self-identify. In reflection of the literature in the adjacent field of sociolinguistics, a survey was created, which asks open-ended questions about their experiences, allowing for detailed responses in a stereotype-free environment. This survey follows a map task experiment, where participants are given nearly identical maps and asked to find missing items by conversing with their partner. In the survey we asked questions regarding race, gender, age, sexuality, languages spoken, ESL experience, and demographic information surrounding their upbringing. We also prompted participants to discuss whether they thought they could tell other peoples’ race solely based on prosodic elements like pitch and intonation, as well as what they think their prosody gives away. We found that many participants came from areas that house a significant African-American/Latine population and that around half of the participants are bilingual. We also found that of the participants who said they could identify one’s ethnicity solely based on prosody, the majority of them said that their ethnicity could not be identified by voice. We also found that participants who had taken linguistics courses were more likely to say that they could identify someone's ethnicity by their intonation.
Comments
Poster presentation at the 2025 Student Research Symposium.