Sociophonetics

Justin T. Jacobs, Élodie Blestel, Maria Candea & Cyril Trimaille
Sorbonne Nouvelle University | Grenoble Alpes University
Table of contents

Sociophonetics is a subfield of linguistics situated at the intersection of the subfields of phonetics and sociolinguistics. It studies heterogeneity and variation of phonetic practices situated in their social environments and the associated social correlates as well as the contributions of the phonetic features to the configuration of these settings.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price.

References

Aarts, Jan
2011 “Corpus Analysis.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 2011 Installment, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 1–14. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agha, Asif
2005 “Voice, Footing, Enregisterment.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1): 38–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ahearn, Laura M.
2010 “Agency and Language.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 2010 Installment, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 1–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alim, H. Samy, John R. Rickford and Arnetha F. Ball
(eds) 2016 Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auer, Peter
1996 “Context and Contextualization.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 1995 Installment, ed. by Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen, 1–19. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Austin, J. L.
1975 How to Do Things with Words (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baumeister, Roy F. and Kathleen D. Vohs
2007 “Similarity-Attraction Effect.” In Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, ed. by Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs, 876. New York: SAGE Publications, Inc.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blestel, Élodie
2022 “Discriminating an Accent, Enacting a Race (and Vice Versa): Perception and Representation of Phonic Variability on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia.” Signs and Society 10(3): 334–361. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, LeAnn and Claire Pillot-Loiseau
2022 “Bright Voice Quality and Fundamental Frequency Variation in Non-Binary Speakers.” Journal of Voice 39(1): 282.e1–282.e17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Butler, Judith
1990 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta Cecelia Jonas
1973 The Interplay of Social and Linguistic Factors in Panama. Doctoral dissertation. Ithaca: Cornell University.
Clarke, John
1975 “Style.” In Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, ed. by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, 175–191. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coetzee, Andries W., Patrice Speeter Beddor, Will Styler, Stephen Tobin, Ian Bekker and Daan Wissing
2022 “Producing and Perceiving Socially Indexed Coarticulation in Afrikaans.” Laboratory Phonology 13(1): 215–219. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coleman, John, Ladan Baghai-Ravary, John Pybus and Sergio Grau
2012 Audio BNC: The Audio Edition of the Spoken British National Corpus. Oxford: University of Oxford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas
2022 “Accommodation Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: Manual (2nd ed.), ed. by Jef Verschueren and Jan-Ola Östman, 21–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company: 21–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé
1989 “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989(1): 139–167.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duignan, Brian
2025 “Critical Race Theory.” Encyclopedia Britannica.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Durand, Jacques, Bernard Laks and Chantal Lyche
2009 “Le projet PFC : une source de données primaires structurées [The PFC Project: A Source of Primary Structured Data].” In Phonologie, variation et accents du français [Phonology, Variation and Accents of French], ed. by Jacques Durand, Bernard Laks and Chantal Lyche, 19–61. Phonologie du français (PFC) [Phonology of French]. Paris: Éditions Lavoisier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
1989 Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002 “Constructing Meaning in Sociolinguistic Variation.” Proceedings of The Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA02). New Orleans.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012 “Three Waves of Variation Study: The Emergence of Meaning in the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41(1): 87–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fagyal, Zsuzsanna
2010 Accents de banlieue: Aspects prosodiques du français populaire en contact avec les langues de l’immigration [Suburban Accents: Prosodic Aspects of Working Class French in Contact with the Languages of Immigration]. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fónagy, Ivan
1989 “Le français change de visage ? [Is French changing face?].” Revue romane 24(2): 225–253.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel
1976 Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir [The History of Sexuality I: The Will to Knowledge]. Paris: Editions Gallimard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foulkes, Paul and Gerard Docherty
2006 “The Social Life of Phonetics and Phonology.” Journal of Phonetics 34(4): 409–438. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuente Iglesias, Mónica de la
2020 Contacto de lenguas e identidad regional: La variación de las vocales medias en el castellano de Galicia [Language Contact and Regional Identity: The Variation of Mid Vowels in the Castilian of Galicia]. Doctoral dissertation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Geldof, Koenraad
2022 “Critical Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: Manual (2nd ed.), ed. by Jef Verschueren and Jan-Ola Östman, 444–451. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giles, Howard and Peter F. Powesland
1975 Speech Style and Social Evaluation. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J.
2001 “Interactional Sociolinguistics: A Personal Perspective.” In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.), ed. by Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton and Deborah Schiffrin, 215–228. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall-Lew, Lauren, Emma Moore and Robert J. Podesva
2021 “Social Meaning and Linguistic Variation: Theoretical Foundations.” In Social Meaning and Linguistic Variation: Theorizing the Third Wave, ed. by Lauren Hall-Lew, Emma Moore and Robert J. Podesva, 1–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harrington, Jonathan, Sallyanne Palethorpe and Catherine I. Watson
2000 “Does the Queen Speak the Queen’s English? Elizabeth II’s Traditional Pronunciation Has Been Influenced by Modern Trends.” Nature 408: 927–928. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer, Aaron Nolan and Katie Drager
2006 “From Fush to Feesh: Exemplar Priming in Speech Perception.” The Linguistic Review 23(3): 351–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer, Warren Paul and Katie Drager
2006 “Factors Influencing Speech Perception in the Context of a Merger-in-Progress.” Journal of Phonetics 34(4): 458–484. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer and Katie Drager
2010 “Stuffed Toys and Speech Perception.” Linguistics 48(4): 865–892. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hebdige, Dick
1979 Subculture: The Meaning of Style. North Yorkshire: Methuen Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Monica
1984 “Sociolinguistics: Theory.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 5: 46–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William
1963 “The Social Motivation of a Sound Change.” WORD 19(3): 273–309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006 The Social Stratification of English in New York City (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin Tolmach
2006 “Gender.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 2006 Installment, ed. by Jef Verschueren and Jan-Ola Östman, 1–20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laks, Bernard
1992 “La linguistique variationniste comme méthode [Variationist Linguistics as Method].” Langages 108: 34–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McGowan, Kevin B. and Anna M. Babel
2020 “Perceiving Isn’t Believing: Divergence in Levels of Sociolinguistic Awareness.” Language in Society 49(2): 231–256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milles, Karin
2022 “Feminism and Language.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 24th Annual Installment, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 145–170. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mortensen, Janus and Nikolas Coupland
2018 “Style and Styling.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 21st Annual Installment, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 201–220. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Niedzielski, Nancy
1999 “The Effect of Social Information on the Perception of Sociolinguistic Variables.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18(1): 62–85. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Obikudo, Ebitare F.
2024 “Phonetic Variation Within the Nkọrọọ Speech Community.” American Journal of Language, Literacy and Learning in STEM Education 2(3): 303–311.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor
1992 “Indexing Gender.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, ed. by Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin, 335–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pardo, Jennifer S.
2006 “On Phonetic Convergence During Conversational Interaction.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119(4): 2382–2393. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pharao, Nicolai, Marie Maegaard, Janus Spindler Møller and Tore Kristiansen
2014 “Indexical Meanings of [s+] Among Copenhagen Youth: Social Perception of a Phonetic Variant in Different Prosodic Contexts.” Language in Society 43(1): 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Podesva, Robert J.
2007 “Phonation Type as a Stylistic Variable: The Use of Falsetto in Constructing a Persona.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 11(4): 478–504. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
PRESEEA
2014 Proyecto para el estudio sociolingüístico del español de España y de América (PRESEEA) [Project for the Sociolinguistic Study of Spanish from Spain and America]. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pustka, Elissa
2011 “L’accent méridional : Représentations, attitudes, et perceptions toulousaines et parisiennes [The Meridional Accent: Toulousian and Parisian Representations, Attitudes and Perceptions].” Varia 69: 117–152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor
2000 “Categorization.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 1998 Installment, ed. by Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen, 1–14. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roth-Gordon, Jennifer
2016 “From Upstanding Citizen to North American Rapper and Back Again: The Racial Malleability of Poor Male Brazilian Youth.” In Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race, ed. by H. Samy Alim, John R. Rickford and Arnetha F. Ball, 51–64. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rymes, Betsy
2015 “WAVE! White American Vernacular English.” Citizen Sociolinguistics, accessed July 1, 2026, https://​citizensociolinguistics​.com​/2015​/06​/12​/wave​-white​-american​-vernacular​-english/
Salmon, William
2025 “Stereotyped Social Meaning, /ɑɪ/ Monophthongization and Gricean Implicatures.” Journal of Pragmatics 247: 29–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandra, Dominiek
2009 “Experimentation.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 2009 Installment, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 1–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Selting, Margret
1985 “Levels of Style-Shifting Exemplified in the Interaction Strategies of a Moderator in a Listener Participation Programme.” Journal of Pragmatics 9: 179–197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
2003 “Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life.” Language & Communication 23(3–4): 193–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strelluf, Christopher
(ed) 2024 The Routledge Handbook of Sociophonetics. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suire, Alexandre, Arnaud Tognetti, Valérie Durand, Michel Raymond and Melissa Barkat-Defradas
2020 “Speech Acoustic Features: A Comparison of Gay Men, Heterosexual Men and Heterosexual Women.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 49(7): 2575–2583. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thomas, Erik R.
2007 “Phonological and Phonetic Characteristics of African American Vernacular English.” Language and Linguistics Compass 1(5): 450–475. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trimaille, Cyril and Maria Candea
2021 “Urban Youth Accents in France: Can a Slight Palatalization of /t/ and /d/ Challenge French Sociophonetics?” In Pragmatics of Accents, ed. by Gaëlle Planchenault and Livia Poljak, 41–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watson, Rod
2022 “Symbolic Interactionism.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: Manual (2nd ed.), ed. by Jef Verschueren and Jan-Ola Östman, 520–527. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov and Marvin I. Herzog
1968 “Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change.” In Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium, ed. by Winfred P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel, 95–196. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Qing
2008 “Rhotacization and the Beijing ‘Smooth Operator’: The Social Meaning of a Linguistic Variable.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(2): 201–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue