Linguistics, University of Canterbury.
Top Cogn Sci. 2018 Oct;10(4):729-744. doi: 10.1111/tops.12338. Epub 2018 Apr 24.
Understanding how and why pronunciations vary and change has been a dominant theme in variationist sociolinguistics (Labov, , ). Linguistic variability has also been an area of focus in psychology and cognitive science. Work from these two fields has shown that where variation exists in language, an alternative form, once used, persists in working memory and has a greater chance of reuse (Bock, ; Bock & Loebell, ; Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, ). While there have been efforts to connect priming research with sociolinguistics at the level of grammar (Poplack, ; Travis, ), there has been less work which explicitly considers the potential role of priming as a motivating factor in accent variation and change. This paper explores the role of priming in a socially conditioned sound change. There are two main findings: (a) phonetic variants with the same voicing tend to cluster together in naturally occurring speech and (b) repetition of phonetic form interacts with widely attested sociolinguistic predictors of variation. I argue that there are benefits to both cognitive science and sociolinguistics from this synergy: Incorporating research from cognitive science into sociolinguistics provides us with a better understanding of the factors underpinning a sound change in progress; incorporating insights from sociolinguistics into cognitive science shows that priming does not always operate in the same way for all speakers.
理解发音是如何以及为何会发生变化一直是变异社会语言学（Labov， ）的一个主要主题。语言的可变性也是心理学和认知科学关注的一个领域。这两个领域的研究表明，在语言中存在差异的地方，一旦使用了一种替代形式，它就会在工作记忆中持续存在，并更有可能被重新使用（Bock，；Bock & Loebell，；Branigan，Pickering，&Cleland，）。虽然已经有人努力将启动研究与语法层面的社会语言学联系起来（Poplack，；Travis，），但很少有研究明确考虑启动作为口音变化和变化的动机因素的潜在作用。本文探讨了启动在社会条件音变中的作用。主要有两个发现：（a）在自然发生的言语中，具有相同浊音的语音变体往往会聚集在一起；（b）语音形式的重复与广泛存在的变异的社会语言学预测因素相互作用。我认为这种协同作用对认知科学和社会语言学都有好处：将认知科学的研究纳入社会语言学可以使我们更好地理解正在进行的音变的基础因素；将社会语言学的见解纳入认知科学表明，启动并不总是对所有说话者以相同的方式起作用。
