A critical evaluation of two approaches to defining perceptual salience

MacLeod, Bethany

doi:10.1016/j.amper.2015.07.001

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Invoking salience as an explanatory factor is not without issues, since salience can be a circular concept (MacLeod, 2015). Moreover, our account is entirely post hoc.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Change is described as salient and driving perception in a wide array fields such as selective visual attention (Theeuwes, 1991;van der Heijden, 1992), visual illusions (Crane, 1988), and even measurements of neural activity in the auditory nerve (Delgutte & Kiang, 1984). Moreover, there are empirical conceptualizations of saliency based on both perceptual properties (such as sudden changes) and language properties (with rare features in a language being more salient) that allow one to narrow down the notion of salience (Auer et al, 1998;MacLeod, 2015). Alternatively, salience can be defined by independent observations, such as the likelihood of phonetic accommodation (Auer et al, 1998;Mitterer & Müsseler, 2013;Podlipskỳ & Simácková, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Selective adaptation of German /r/: A role for perceptual saliency

Mitterer

Reinisch

2022

Atten Percept Psychophys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In three experiments, we examined selective adaptation of German /r/ depending on the positional and allophonic overlap between adaptors and targets. A previous study had shown that selective adaptation effects with /r/ in Dutch require allophonic overlap between adaptor and target. We aimed at replicating this finding in German, which also has many allophones of /r/. German post-vocalic /r/ is often vocalized, and pre-vocalic /r/ can occur in at least three forms: uvular fricative [ʁ], uvular trill [ʀ] and alveolar trill [r]. We tested selective adaptation between these variants. The critical questions were whether an allophonic overlap is necessary for adaptation or whether phonemic overlap is sufficient to generate an adaptation effect. Surprisingly, our results show that both assertations are wrong: Adaptation does not require an allophonic overlap between adaptors and target and neither is phonemic overlap sufficient. Even more surprisingly, trilled adaptors led to more adaptation for a uvular-fricative target than uvular-fricative adaptors themselves. We suggest that the perceptual salience of the adaptors may be a hitherto underestimated influence on selective adaptation.

show abstract

“…Invoking salience as an explanatory factor is not without issues, since salience can be a circular concept (MacLeod, 2015). Moreover, our account is entirely post hoc.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selective adaptation of German /r/: A role for perceptual saliency

Mitterer

Reinisch

2022

Atten Percept Psychophys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The concept of salience has been defined in various ways in the literature and it is beyond the scope of this paper to contribute to this discussion. The interested reader can consult the related literature (e.g., Trudgill, 1986;Auer et al, 1998;Kerswill and Williams, 2002;MacLeod, 2015).…”

Section: Dialect Areas Characteristics and Evaluationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Small Island With Big Differences? Folk Perceptions in the Context of Dialect Levelling and Koineization

Fotiou

Grohmann

2022

Front. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents the results of the first study within a perceptual dialectology framework in the Greek-speaking community in Cyprus. Thirty participants from three age groups of equal size took part in a sociolinguistic interview. As part of the language module component of the interview, they discussed their beliefs about regional variation in Cyprus and completed the so-called ‘draw-a-map task’. All participants were residents of urban areas of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. The Greek-speaking community in Cyprus is diglossic: Standard Modern Greek is the High variety, while Cypriot Greek—the mother tongue of Greek Cypriots—is the Low variety. The latter is currently undergoing levelling of marked local basilect features and subvarieties. A quantitative analysis of the maps demonstrates that some areas in Cyprus (mainly in the periphery) have a stronger sociolinguistic salience than others. At the same time, the participants’ own way of speaking is perceived as unmarked, neutral and one that enjoys wider acceptance over other regional dialects. This study also shows a clear preference for characterizing a (presumed) dialect area with linguistic characteristics, rather than with evaluative commentary contra many similar studies in the literature and suggests a number of reasons why this may be so. Overall, this research shows how studies on language perception can inform and complement studies on language production in a given community. The participants drew an average of just four regional areas on their maps and viewed the different cities and their districts, or combinations thereof, as the different regional dialect areas they perceive to exist in Cyprus. It is argued in this paper that the small number of areas drawn and the emphasis on urban sites are consistent with regional dialect levelling. Consistent with regional dialect levelling is also the finding that the participants’ linguistic description of regional variation, while mainly accurate, is superficial and lacks detail. Interestingly, many of the participants also seem to be well aware of regional dialect levelling in their community. Other studies in the literature do not really discuss speakers’ awareness of levelling and this should be further explored in future studies.

show abstract

“…In the first part of this study, we shall attempt to discuss the role of sociolinguistic salience in dialect contact, the different sociolinguistic salience models, the categorization of linguistic features (based on salience), and the approaches of measuring salience, the approach of criteria-list and the experimental one (MacLeod, 2015). In the second part, we shall present the data and results of the experiments on the sociolinguistic salience of some of Najdi Arabic dialects" features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociolinguistic Salience of Linguistic Variables in Najdi Arabic

Alajmi¹,

Alghannam²

2022

WJEL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines the relative sociolinguistic salience of three linguistic variables in two Najdi dialects, the bedouin and sedentary dialects. The quantitative data elicited from sociolinguistic interviews in Alajmi (2019) shows that bedouins are converging on the sedentary dialect, to varying degrees across the variables. The aim of this study is to test whether the sociolinguistic salience of the variables is the reason why there is variation in the level of convergence. Three methods have been used to measure the relative salience of the variables, the Social Category Association Test (SCAT), dialect identification task and multiple interviewers. The data from all three methods agree with the level of convergence in the production data (Alajmi, 2019). The variable that shows high level of convergence to the sedentary variant was found to be salient, while the other variables which show low levels of convergence were not salient.

show abstract

A critical evaluation of two approaches to defining perceptual salience

Cited by 17 publications

References 37 publications

Selective adaptation of German /r/: A role for perceptual saliency

Selective adaptation of German /r/: A role for perceptual saliency

A Small Island With Big Differences? Folk Perceptions in the Context of Dialect Levelling and Koineization

The Sociolinguistic Salience of Linguistic Variables in Najdi Arabic

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About