Sociophonetics is a branch of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

that broadly combines the methods of

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...

and

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

. It addresses the questions of how socially constructed variation in the sound system is used and learned. The term was first used by Denise Deshaies-Lafontaine in their 1974 dissertation on

Quebecois French Quebec French (french: français québécois ), also known as Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language spoken in Canada. It is the dominant language of the province of Quebec, used in everyday communication, in educa ...

, with early work in the field focusing on answering questions, chiefly sociolinguistic, using phonetic methods and data. The field began to expand rapidly in the 1990s: interest in the field increased and the boundaries of the field expanded to include a wider diversity of topics. Currently, sociophonetic studies often employ methods and insight from a wide range of fields including

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

clinical linguistics Clinical linguistics is a sub-discipline of applied linguistics involved in the description, analysis, and treatment of language disabilities, especially the application of linguistic theory to the field of Speech-Language Pathology. The study of ...

, and

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, comput ...

Development

At the intersection between phonetics and sociolinguistics, sociophonetics shares its history with both fields starting with

Pāṇini , era = ;;6th–5th century BCE , region = Indian philosophy , main_interests = Grammar, linguistics , notable_works = ' (Sanskrit#Classical Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit) , influenced= , notable_ideas=Descript ...

's phonetic analysis of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

circa 600 BCE. Pānini's grammar investigated differences between standard (Vedic) usage and the regional varieties of Sanskrit spoken outside of ritual contexts, with some grammatical rules taking into account sociolinguistic context. After Pānini few phonetic studies were conducted until the 1800s when technological advances especially in audio recording became available. As modern linguistics developed, the types of information investigated tended to be split into an abstract linguistic system and the context in which it is used. The context of use introduces a wide range of variability due to individual variation such as physiological and anatomical differences, but has also been shown to include social and indexical information about the speaker and context. The field of sociophonetics, and sociolinguistics generally, began in the 1960s and 70s with the work of William Labov who found statistical correlations between the use of certain pronunciations and membership in social categories. These early investigations tended to focus on variation and change in vowels, and they were conducted almost exclusively in the United States on

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...

Topics investigated

Sociophonetics covers a broad range of topics between the quintessential fields phonetics and sociolinguistics. Studies have focused on differences in

speech production Speech production is the process by which thoughts are translated into speech. This includes the selection of words, the organization of relevant grammatical forms, and then the articulation of the resulting sounds by the motor system using the vo ...

, the social meaning of particular pronunciations, perception and perceivability of sociophonetic patterns, and the role of sociocultural factors in phonetic models of production among other topics. Of particular interest to sociophoneticians is the sources and causes of variation in speech, with many studies focusing on differences in pronunciation between regions, social classes, races and ethnicities, genders, sexes, sexual orientations, ages, and within speakers. A common thread between these investigations is the role of biology as an influential but not deterministic force in phonetic variation. For example, young boys will often lower their voices before any pubescent, physical changes occur in their vocal tract in order to distinguish themselves from girls and establish themselves as "masculine".

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* * * * * * {{Authority control Phonetics Sociolinguistics