2023

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/50013

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    Properties of Constructed Language Phonological Inventories
    (2023-08-01) Ng, Sara; Sleight, Abigail Schwendiman
    This paper considers the phonetic distributions of constructed languages (conlangs) as evidence for their ability to reflect patterns of natural language. Ancillary to the aim of this direction of study was the creation of CLIPS, a small database of phoneme inventories sampled from documented conlangs. This interface allows for easy comparison between the inventories of natural languages and conlangs. We find that while conlangs as a set have encouraging similarities to natural language, they differ in important ways. We find that frequency with which certain phonemes occur in conlangs is similar to the frequency with which they appear in natural language. However, we also find that Conlang inventories do still contain segments not present (or even feasible) in natural language. Furthermore, we find that conlangs have a much higher mean frequency index than natural languages. Based on this information, we conclude that conlangs may in fact be influenced by phonetic principles of natural language, but they are not representative of language in general, at least phonetically.
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    A Study Proposal for AAL Imitation in Pop Music Involving Comparisons of Word Realizations in Two Speech Registers
    (2023-06-28) Rothstein, Alexander
    This paper adapts an intra-speaker comparison approach to dialect imitation (e.g., Neuhauser, 2008; Segerup, 1999) for pop music. Same or equivalent utterances from one speaker in two speech contexts (spoken speech and sung speech) are compared, allowing phonological disparities to be interpreted as dialect features. In this paper, and in the proposed project, the approach is used to chart tendencies of non–African American Language (AAL) speakers to mimic AAL and/or Southern American English (SAE) in sung speech, with examples from pop singers Adele, Elle King, Elvis Presley, and Barbara Windsor. This paper also presents a critique of imitation explanations such as “melody-induced” dialect leveling and accommodation theory, and details the benefits of intra-speaker approaches like Neuhauser (2008) over those beginning with preselected sociolinguistic variables (e.g., Trudgill, 1997; Eberhardt & Freeman, 2015). Additionally, it stresses the relevance of subjective evaluations to dialect imitation in music as they are elicited through matched-guise tests and Preston’s (1989) perceptual dialectology methods. The aim of the study this paper proposes is to contribute to a move toward the objective measurement of cultural appropriation.