Sociophonetics Lab

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The Sociophonetics Lab is home to a variety of sociolinguistic and phonetic studies involving both typical speaker-listeners and those with hearing loss or speech disorders. Our sociolinguistic work is concerned with the relationships between language use and social factors -- including differences between social groups (region, age, gender, hearing status, etc.), shifts within language users (based on situation, audience, social role, etc.), and attitudes about speakers and language varieties. Our phonetic work involves acoustic analysis -- measuring components of sound from audio recordings (pitch, loudness, speech rate, resonance frequencies) -- and listeners' perceptions of differences between speech sounds. Many projects involve both socio- and phonetic aspects.

We ask questions like:

How does pronunciation differ between regions? between urban and rural Oklahoma? between ages, genders, or ethnic groups? (variation in speech production between groups)
How do people change how they talk in different situations? Do they behave differently when they encounter people with certain accents, hearing loss, or speech disorders? (variation in speech production within individuals)
What do people think of various accents? How do listeners judge the voices of people with hearing loss, non-native accents, or speech disorders? (language attitudes) 
How do listeners' reactions affect the quality of life of people with hearing loss, non-native accents, or speech disorders? How can we help listeners understand unfamiliar speakers and reduce their biases to improve social communication? (application)