Abstract:
Speech is a complex auditory signal that contains multiple layers of linguistic and non-linguistic structure, it contains both linguistic and social class information. Perceivers are exquisitely sensitive to this layered structure and extract not only linguistic properties, but also indexical characteristics that provide information about individual talkers and groups of talkers. Social class information involves inferring the speaker\'s social class or forming an impression of their social status based on their speech. Previous research on social class perception in speech has primarily focused on English, with relatively little research on Chinese. This study examines social class perception in Chinese speech. Study 1 employed class judgment and evaluation tasks with a subjective social class scale as the main measure to examine whether listeners could infer class information from Chinese speech and how their own class background influenced their perception. The results of Study 1 showed that subjects could accurately discriminate between speakers\' social classes, but there may be a response bias that overestimates lower-class speakers as upper-class speakers. Study 2 focused on whether the speech of different classes of speakers actually differed on a number of indicators. It was found that the speech of higher class speakers was perceived to be more standardised, more pleasant to listen to and less accent-intensive. Overall, listeners can perceive class information from Chinese speech; different classes of Chinese speech do contain different levels of indexical information. In Chinese language societies, individuals can also judge their class information through the speech, which is consistent with the relevant research results in English.
摘要:
语音是一种复杂的听觉信号,包含多层语言和非语言结构,它包含语言和社会阶层信息。感知者对这种分层结构非常敏感,不仅提取语言属性,而且还提供有关个体健谈者和健谈者群体的信息的指标特征。社会阶层信息包括推断说话者的社会阶层或根据他们的讲话形成他们的社会地位的印象。以前关于言语中社会阶层感知的研究主要集中在英语,对汉语的研究相对较少。本研究考察了汉语言语中的社会阶层感知。研究1采用了以主观社会阶层量表为主要衡量标准的阶级判断和评估任务,以检查听众是否可以从汉语语音中推断出阶级信息,以及他们自己的阶级背景如何影响他们的感知。研究1的结果表明,受试者可以准确地区分说话者的社会阶层,但是可能存在一种反应偏见,将下层演讲者高估为上层演讲者。研究2的重点是不同类别的说话者的讲话是否实际上在许多指标上有所不同。发现高级别的说话者的讲话被认为更加标准化,听起来更愉快,口音更少。总的来说,听众可以从中文语音中感知类信息;不同类别的中文语音确实包含不同级别的索引信息。在中国语言社会,个人也可以通过演讲判断自己的班级信息,这与英语相关研究成果是一致的。