Multiple Features, Multiple Identities:

A Sociophonetic Profile of Condoleezza Rice

Robert J. PodesvaGeorgetown University

Jason BrenierUniversity of Colorado, Boulder

Lauren Hall-Lew, Stacy Lewis, Patrick Callier, Rebecca Starr

Stanford University

ADS 2007 Anaheim

We thank the participants of the Half Moon Bay Style Retreat for providing inspiration on the theoretical front, Natalie Schilling-Estes and the participants of her

Sociolinguistics Style Seminar for feedback on our approach, and Jermay Jamsu for assistance with coding.

Theoretical Background

• Research on the linguistic construction of identity typically focuses on single identity categories, obscuring connections between demographic affiliations, ideologies, and practices (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992, Bucholtz et al. 1999).

Our Approach

• Characterize a speaker’s constellation of phonetic features: a sociophonetic profile.

• Examine multiple features to investigate how a speaker’s multifaceted identity is managed through language, allowing variation patterns to bring the most prominent aspects of identity to the surface.

Speaker: Condoleezza Rice

prominent

political figure

woman

African American

Southern

Western

Phonetic/Phonological Features

AA(V)E Southern WesternHyperstandar

d

(d) glottalization (d) glottalization (æ) split (æ) backing

(er) weakening (er) weakeningfronting of (uw)

and (ow)bec(au)se

(ih)-(eh) merger (ah)-(oh) merger (ptk) release

(ay) monophthong.

• Examine the extent to which Rice uses these features.• Compare use of these features across two styles, speech vs.

Q&A, under the assumption that more frequent and phonetically stronger vernacular variants appear in the relatively informal Q&A.

Methods

• Approximately 1 hour speaking engagement addressing Commonwealth Club of California

• Hand transcription by authors using Transcriber

• Timestamps for utterance boundaries obtained, used to segment long audio file into series of short, utterance-length files

Methods

• Forced alignment of word and phone boundaries using Sonic (Pellom et al. 2001)– Large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system– Acoustic and language models trained on corpus of

continuous speech (Switchboard) diverse in regional dialects

“and we can explain why this is true”

and AE1 N Dand AH1 Nwe W IY1can K AE1 Ncan K AH1 Nexplain IH0 K S P L EY1 Nexplain EH0 K S P L EY1 N...

Methods

• Word, phone, and utterance alignments used to make acoustic measurements in Praat by script

• Subset of phonetic measurements conducted by hand to calculate error rate

Corpus Statistics

• Total phones: 29,100• Total words: 7,659• Total duration of Rice’s speech:

38.42 mins

• Expanding corpus, analysis of additional speaking situations currently underway

African American English Features

• Glottalization of (-d)– Environment: postvocalic, word-final /d/– Previous Work: Fasold 1981; Bailey and

Thomas 1998; Kohl and Anderson 2000

• Weakening of (er)– Environment: r-colored schwa in unstressed

position– Previous Work: Pollock and Berni 1997;

Thomas 2001; Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006

(-d) Glottalization

the United Nationstotally misguided Iraqis voted despite the threats of the terrorists

perverted that the United States is permanently committed

ethnic cleansing erupted not to become diverted by

(-d) Glottalization

• VARBRUL analysis indicates glottal variant more common (p=0.013) in Q&A (factor weight = 0.596) than speech (factor weight = 0.314).

• In favored environments, Rice uses glottalized variant 35% of time in Q&A versus 20.5% in speech.

• Preceding vowel shorter (p=0.048) in Q&A (50 ms) than speech (60 ms), due to compensatory shortening of vowel in pre-voiceless environment.

(er) Weakening

• Unstressed (er) realized phonetically more weakly in the Q&A.– Higher minimum F3 (1,838 Hz vs. 1,734

Hz, p=0.001) in Q&A than speech.– Shorter duration (89 ms vs. 104 ms,

p=0.016) in Q&A than speech.

Summary of AAE Features

• While Rice avoids the use of all stereotypical vernacular features of AAE, she makes use of glottalized (d) and (er) weakening, both features of a more prestigious variety, Black Standard English.

• BUT, these features are also used in Southern varieties of American English.

Southern Features

• (-d) Glottalization• (er) Weakening

• (ih)/(eh) Merger– Environment: before nasals in stressed

syllables– Previous Work: Brown 1991, Bigham 2004

• (ay) Monophthongization– Environment: stressed syllables– Previous Work: Hay et al. 1999, Anderson 2003

No (ih)/(eh) Merger

Speech Q&A

No (ay) Monophthongization

Robust pattern of diphthongization.

Speech Q&A

Western Features

• Fronting of (uw) and (ow)• (ah)/(oh) Merger• (æ) Split

– Environment: stressed syllables– Previous Work: Moonwomon 1992, Eckert

and Staum 2003

No Fronting of (uw) and (ow)

Speech Q&A

u o

Condoleezza Rice move goes

N. Californian Adolescents(http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert)

move goes

No (ah)/(oh) Merger

Speech Q&A

(æ) Split

Speech Q&A

Anchor

Can

Diplomatic

Challenge

Thank

Can

Assets

Challenge

Pre-Nasal Raising

Pre-Oral Backing

Summary of Regional Features

• Although Rice has spent the majority of her life in Alabama, Colorado, and California, she avoids the use of stereotypical features of those regions.

• Her speech does exhibit one Western feature, the raising/fronting of (æ) pre-nasally and backing of (æ) pre-orally (Moonwomon 1992, Eckert and Staum 2003).

• BUT, the backing of (æ) could alternatively be interpreted as hyperstandard.

Hyperstandard Features

• (æ) Backing– Environment: stressed syllables– Previous Work: Hughes and Trudgill 1979; Bucholtz

2001

• bec(au)se– Environment: stressed vowel in the word because– Previous Work: Kökeritz 1964, Bucholtz 1996

• (ptk) Release– Environment: word-finally and pre-pausally– Previous Work: Naughton 1979; Byrd 1992;

Bucholtz 1995; Benor 2001; Podesva et al. 2002

(æ) Backing as Hyperstandard

• The backing of (æ) indexes a refined style, due to its ideological associations with British varieties of English (Hughes and Trudgill 1979; Bucholtz 2001).

• This feature occurs alongside “British” stress patterns in words like finance, allies, and program.

“British” Stress Patterns

...are good allies of ours.

Gloria was very involved in that program.

And many of them were kind of fronts for terrorist financing.

And we’ve worked very hard with the Saudis to shut down some of that uh terrorist financing, so...

two utterances later

bec(au)se

• Variable production, including wedge and (oh).

• (oh) in because backer (p=0.001) and longer (p=0.016) in than (oh) elsewhere.

• Suggests a relatively stronger influence of orthography compared to Standard American English usage.

because

because

(ptk) Release

Rice demonstrates heightened articulatory precision with the rate and strength of utterance-final (ptk) releases.

– 71.7% stops released, higher than comparable rates for American English.

– Bursts 28 ms longer (p=0.036) in speech after speech rate normalization.

Ah, to fight the uh violent uh jihad.

...the freedom deficit in the Middle East and in the broader Middle East.

Conclusions

• Ideological (Hyperstandard, BSE) factors figure more prominently in Rice’s speech than regional factors.

• Rice’s tendency to use two features of Black Standard English (BSE) and several hyperstandard features enables her to maintain an affiliation with a positively valued African American identity while cultivating a hyperstandard public persona.

Conclusions

• Meanings are ambiguous; neither (er) weakening nor (-d) glot. can be attributed to BSE or Southern speech alone (which may be politically desirable for Rice).

• Investigations of identity should examine multiple linguistic features, a practice facilitated by the methodology introduced here.

Future Directions

• Diachronic Approach: Investigation of whether Rice’s hyperstandard features have enabled her to construct an increasingly public persona.

• Cross-Situational Approach: Exploration of how Rice’s constellation of phonetic features shifts as she moves into less formal situations.

• Perception Approach: Examination of how the prominent features of her speech from a production standpoint are interpreted socially.

• Discourse Approach: Analysis of the ways in which tokens are situated in particular moments of the discourse.

Error Rates

Feature Acoustic Measure Auto vs. Manual Difference

(-d) vowel duration 4 ms (n.s., p=0.307)

(er) F3 1.45 Hz (n.s., p=0.91)

(er) duration 12 ms (sig., p=0.005)

(æ)K F2 17 Hz (n.s., p=0.088)

(æ)L F2 195 Hz (sig., p=0.0004)

bec(au)se

duration 5 ms (n.s., p=.719)

bec(au)se

F2 12.5 Hz (n.s., p=0.36)

(ptk) duration 5 ms (n.s., p=0.557)

Differences between automatic and manual measurements small (not significant) in general. For (æ)L F2, the difference between automatic and manual measurements was significant because the manual measurements revealed a greater difference between the speech and the Q&A.