The Role of Dialect Experience in Topic-Based Shifts in Speech Production

Abstract

AbstractAn individual's language can change in the moment due to the topic of conversation and over time because of regional mobility. This paper investigates the relationship between these two types of shifts by asking whether speakers with substantial second dialect exposure change their pronunciation more when the topic changes in a regionally meaningful way compared to speakers with less exposure. Specifically, topic-based shifts on three phonological variables that differ between British and US English are investigated in native speakers of both dialects as a function of the migrant status of the speaker. Experience matters in that speakers only shift between variants in their repertoire, and expatriates have acquired some second dialect features that nonmigrants do not have. However, it does not appear that more exposure to, or increased rates of usage of a variant leads to more topic-based shifting toward that variant. These findings, interpreted within the existing literature, suggest that topic-based shifts are driven primarily by stereotypical sociolinguistic representations.