Translocality in the anglophone Caribbean II: Sociophonetic variation and perception

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Dagmar Deuber
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
• Term: since 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 259827343

While research on standard varieties of English has traditionally concentrated on the national level, in recent years, the focus has been increasingly also on transnational phenomena of English in today’s times of globalisation. However, those levels that are located in between the nation state and the global level are still rarely considered. Using the concept of translocality, this second phase of the project is devoted to standards of English in the anglophone Caribbean on all of these spatial levels: It analyses language use in the context of educational institutions in three Eastern Caribbean states (Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada and Dominica) with regard to national and regional standardisation processes as well as global influences such as from American English. However, it also considers subregional (subregions inside the anglophone Caribbean) and subnational (town vs. country) aspects as well as the interaction of factors related to the different spatial levels. The central object of empirical investigation is sociophonetic variation in oral language use. Pertinent data collected in the first phase of the project are analysed with regard to consonantal, vocalic and prosodic aspects using a combination of acoustic and auditory methods. For the acoustic vowel analyses, a tool for automatic forced alignment and vowel formant prediction specifically calibrated to Trinidadian English is used that can also be adapted for further Caribbean varieties of English and which facilitates an automatic analysis of tens to hundreds of thousands of vowels. The aim is to describe similarities and differences within and between the selected territories. The Project thus performs the first context-specific cross-national phonetic analysis of Standard English in the Caribbean. This analysis is complemented by an investigation of the perception of oral language usage. An internet-based study in which stimuli of teachers from different anglophone Caribbean countries are played to participant will test in how far accents can be correctly assigned to the respective countries and subregions of origin inside the Caribbean. The triangulation of the results from this phase of the project with data on language attitudes that were collected and analysed in the first Phase will facilitate an extensive comparative perspective on spoken Standard English and on national and regional Standardisation tendencies in the Caribbean. This will provide the basis to Elaborate and empirically substantiate contributions to the theoretical modelling of the development of varieties of English in times of globalisation. In doing so potentials and limitations of national standardisationprocesses will be determined and the interaction of different translocal levels in the context of multinormative stabilisation processes will be identified.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants