The Effect of a Single Formant on Dialect Identification

Abstract

Labov (2001:167–68) makes the claim that English speech communities use F2 in vowels to establish social identity, while they use F1 chiefly for the cognitive differentiation of vowel phonemes. However, little work has been done to address whether this observation holds in perception. By using a forced-choice, matched-guise experiment, this paper investigates whether variations in a single formant can shift perceptions of a speaker’s regional origin. Results suggest that when the F1 of DRESS is low, the vowel is more reliably rated as Californian, suggesting that depending on the vowel, both formants may be important in the perception of social identity.