Collaborators: Molly Babel & Sandy Chow
Sociolinguistic research has shown that particular pronunciation variants in sound changes bear social weight (King et al., 2022). Listeners may have perceptions about a talker’s age, socioeconomic status, or educational level based on their pronunciation (Lawrence, 2017; Pan, 1981). For example, the historical syllable-initial /n/ is unconditionally merging with /l/ in Cantonese, meaning Cantonese speakers tend to pronounce /n/ initial words with a [l] sound (Cheng et al., 2022; Zee & 徐, 1999). Speakers have metalinguistic awareness of this sound change, associating historical [n] pronunciations with prestige and “properness” while innovative [l] pronunciations are socially stigmatized.
Pan (1981) found that speakers who used more historical [n] pronunciations were judged more positively on social dimensions (e.g. place of residence, educational attainment) than those who used [l] pronunciations. However, we do not know if the effect continues today. Therefore, through a conceptual replication of Pan (1981), this study examines whether social perceptions about [n] and [l] pronunciations are still present today.