Ascribed Status, Lexical Diversity, and Accent: Determinants of Perceived Status, Solidarity, and Control of Speech Style

Abstract

The effects of status ascriptions (high vs. low) and accent (standard American vs. Mexican-American) upon perceptions of speaker status and solidarity are examined. Consequences of the independent variables for a novel dependent variable, perceived control of speech style, are examined also. One hundred and twenty-two respondents rated one of eight message versions in a between-group design. Results indicated, among other things, that: (1) status ascriptions and accent combined additively to affect judgements of speaker status, as did status ascriptions and diversity; (2) lexical diversity and accent affected both solidarity judgements and status judgements interactively, although the nature of the interactive effect differed across measures; and (3) lexical diversity was an especially potent determinant of perceptions of control of speech style. It is suggested that a clear picture of linguistic and non-linguistic determinants of judgements of speaker status is emerging.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 88 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.