Research & Projects
Image used from an article in "the Standard".
Project 1
Attitudinal Effects on the Realizations of Names: A Contribution to the Name Mispronunciation Microaggression
Examples of microaggressions can exist in everyday communication, such as the way we describe others and even in how we choose to pronounce individual names. Name mispronunciations can be interpreted as an insult to someone’s identity since names are indicative of one’s identity. Under the mentorship of Dr. Pam Beddor and Dr. Robin Queen, this project studies how and why microaggression percepts derive from mispronunciations.
Objectives
To investigate:
In what ways are English speakers' production of Hispanic names influenced by their knowledge of Spanish and their attitudes towards speakers of that language?
Which phonetic characteristics of name mispronunciations contribute especially to their perception of a microaggression?
Anticipated Results
Ultimately, I expect that attitudes and language exposure will be variables that interact during name pronunciations due to differences in phonological structures across English and Spanish.
Vowel quality, vowel deletion, and stress differences between the pronunciation of names will contribute especially to microaggression percepts.