Testing the limits of the sociolinguistic monitor

Speech pauses and some functions of pragmatic markers such as you know are often the result of speech planning processes, i.e. they may occur when we slow down for a moment while constructing sentences in our heads. Thus, their occurrence is variable: sometimes they occur, sometimes they do not. There are other features of speech that are variable but linguists had always assumed that they are a separate category. For example, we may say singing or singin, water or waer. This variation is not located in the speech planning domain. This is variation in the sound system or the system of morphology. It has recently been suggested, that the variable output of the speech planning system is organised like any other variation, and that it may even undergo change. Fruehwald (2016) suggests that the variable output is so similar because the speech planning system and other systems are interacting with a separate domain of linguistic knowledge, such as a sociolinguistic monitor (Labov et al 2011). It may structure the variable output in a similar manner when it monitors the occurrence of non-standard features and, possibly also, speech planning features, such as uhm and unfilled pauses. This project aims to explore this proposal of structural similarity between the variation of classic sociolinguistic variables with those resulting from speech planning. This will be investigated by finding out how all these features are evaluated in England. If these sets of systems are so similar in their variation and if they are the result of a general monitor, we would expect their variable output to be evaluated in similar terms. If they are not, one might conclude that the sociolinguistic monitor does not control conversational features due to speech planning. To investigate these issues, this study will conduct a series of perceptual experiments with several different guises that listeners hear and evaluate, for example: speech without noticeable pauses and pragmatic markers like and you know, and the same speech with filled and unfilled pauses or pragmatic markers inserted. We will also explore to what extent the frequency of filled and unfilled pauses and pragmatic markers influences how speakers are evaluated.