The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community
Previous research in speech perception has shown that perception is influenced by social factors that can result in behavioral consequences such as reduced intelligibility (i.e., a listeners’ ability to transcribe the speech they hear). However, little is known about these effects regarding Spanish...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-09-01
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| Series: | Languages |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/3/231 |
| _version_ | 1797485754783367168 |
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| author | Cecelia Staggs Melissa Baese-Berk Charlie Nagle |
| author_facet | Cecelia Staggs Melissa Baese-Berk Charlie Nagle |
| author_sort | Cecelia Staggs |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Previous research in speech perception has shown that perception is influenced by social factors that can result in behavioral consequences such as reduced intelligibility (i.e., a listeners’ ability to transcribe the speech they hear). However, little is known about these effects regarding Spanish speakers’ perception of heritage Spanish, Spanish spoken by individuals who have an ancestral and cultural connection to the Spanish language. Given that ideologies within the U.S. Latino community often equate Latino identity to speaking Spanish “correctly” and proficiently, there is a clear need to understand the potential influence these ideologies have on speech perception. Using a matched-guised methodology, we analyzed the influence of speaker social background information and listener social background information on speech perception. Participants completed a transcription task in which four different Spanish heritage speakers were paired with different social guises to determine if the speakers were perceived as equally intelligible under each guise condition. The results showed that social guise and listener social variables did not significantly predict intelligibility scores. We argue that the unique socio-political culture within the U.S. Latino community may lead to different effects of language ideology and social expectation on speech perception than what has been documented in previous work. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:24:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5b38e9f6ad1246dfb78dc72b373da1e6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2226-471X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:24:23Z |
| publishDate | 2022-09-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Languages |
| spelling | doaj.art-5b38e9f6ad1246dfb78dc72b373da1e62023-11-23T17:21:23ZengMDPI AGLanguages2226-471X2022-09-017323110.3390/languages7030231The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage CommunityCecelia Staggs0Melissa Baese-Berk1Charlie Nagle2Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USADepartment of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USADepartment of World Languages and Cultures, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USAPrevious research in speech perception has shown that perception is influenced by social factors that can result in behavioral consequences such as reduced intelligibility (i.e., a listeners’ ability to transcribe the speech they hear). However, little is known about these effects regarding Spanish speakers’ perception of heritage Spanish, Spanish spoken by individuals who have an ancestral and cultural connection to the Spanish language. Given that ideologies within the U.S. Latino community often equate Latino identity to speaking Spanish “correctly” and proficiently, there is a clear need to understand the potential influence these ideologies have on speech perception. Using a matched-guised methodology, we analyzed the influence of speaker social background information and listener social background information on speech perception. Participants completed a transcription task in which four different Spanish heritage speakers were paired with different social guises to determine if the speakers were perceived as equally intelligible under each guise condition. The results showed that social guise and listener social variables did not significantly predict intelligibility scores. We argue that the unique socio-political culture within the U.S. Latino community may lead to different effects of language ideology and social expectation on speech perception than what has been documented in previous work.https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/3/231Spanish heritagespeech perceptionspeech intelligibilitymatched-guise |
| spellingShingle | Cecelia Staggs Melissa Baese-Berk Charlie Nagle The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community Languages Spanish heritage speech perception speech intelligibility matched-guise |
| title | The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community |
| title_full | The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community |
| title_fullStr | The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community |
| title_short | The Influence of Social Information on Speech Intelligibility within the Spanish Heritage Community |
| title_sort | influence of social information on speech intelligibility within the spanish heritage community |
| topic | Spanish heritage speech perception speech intelligibility matched-guise |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/3/231 |
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