Toward an ecologically valid theory of speech perception

Abstract Sociophonetic speech perception has evolved as a separate entity; distinct from not only the larger body of speech perception research but from underlying phonetic and phonological theories. Evidence suggests, however, that socially meaningful variation strongly influences perceptions traditionally assumed to be language-specific. Such fundamental concepts as vowel quality, fricative place, or the acoustic correlates of gender show language-specific patterns of perception and production (Strand, 1999; Johnson, 2006; McGowan and Babel, 2020). These patterns urge us to reconsider the boundaries of grammar and to consider the possibility that what speakers know when we know a language entwines more completely with social knowledge than is predicted by traditional accounts. This chapter argues that speech perception is fundamentally social and that listeners’ use of social information in speech perception sheds new light on old problems while enabling a range of new questions.