Sociophonetic Investigation of Speech Perception among Students of Rivers State University, Unkpolu, Port Harcourt

Abstract

This study was carried out to probe listeners’ use of sociophonetic details in speech perception.The study was premised on the theory of model of social recognition. The population of thestudy was students of Rivers State University of Science and Technology. Spoken materials wereused as instruments for data collection. Descriptive and interpretative tools were used for theanalysis of data collected. It was found that the combination of linguistic and dialectical tokensexhibited by the speakers helped the listeners to identify the regional dialect of speakers. It wasrevealed also that speakers index their ethnic background using phonetic variables. Also, thestudy found that individuals’ stereotypical attitudes affect their judgments when perceiving aspeech. The study concludes that no natural human utterance offers linguistic informationwithout simultaneously indexing some social factors.