Recent work in variationist sociolinguistics has highlighted the importance of speech perception research to fully understand patterns of language use (Campbell-Kibler 2016), with some work focusing on how language enregisters place (e.g. Pharao et al. 2014). Studies of enregisterment have tended to consider one variable at a time (e.g. Johnstone and Kiesling 2008), but recent methodological developments (see Montgomery and Moore, forthcoming) have made it possible to test reactions to multiple features at once in real time. Using this methodology, this study examines which features of west Cornish English (wCE) have sociocultural relevance for the speech community. In particular, this paper will consider which features have indexical links to place, which are more generally salient in the UK, and which are not particularly socially meaningful in this context.This forms part of a larger study intended to provide a well-rounded account of an understudied variety.
In recognition of the nature of salience as dynamic and highly context-specific (e.g. Drager and Kirtley 2016), four guises, collected from a male traditional wCE speaker and a less vernacular female wCE speaker, were divided into two conditions according to the topic of the talk: either talking about Cornwall, or about no particular region. Following Montgomery and Moore (forthcoming), 128 non-linguists’ responses to the guises were captured in real time using an online tool. Respondents listened to the stimuli and guessed where the speaker was from, before listening again and clicking a button whenever they heard anything that was notable or signified the speaker’s location. They then reviewed their button clicks and added qualitative comments about exactly what stood out to them.
The results were analysed according to where listeners guessed the speaker to be from. They indicate that features such as the [ɛʊ] variant of MOUTH are most enregistered as Cornish English, while other features, such as the [æː] variant of BATH, are more widely enregistered as ‘generally South Western’. These results also have wider implications for our understanding of salience, social meaning, and speech perception, as they highlight the importance of both context and assumed speaker location on the salience of a linguistic feature.
