Sociophonetics and Second Language Acquisition

This chapter discusses existing research that applies sociophonetic methods to studies involving second-language-speaking participants. First, after a brief overview of the connections between sociophonetics and second language acquisition, it covers the studies of sociophonetic variation in speech produced by second language speakers. Second, it reviews sociophonetic research in speech perception involving second language speakers and listeners. Then, it concisely evaluates the limited work that attempts to link production and perception. Finally, it presents a case study which illustrates second language research in sociophonetics and aims to showcase how production and perception work can inform each other. In particular it explores how within-speaker sociophonetic variation in production corresponds among different variables and with variation in perception. The chapter concludes with a summary of the field’s future directions and a call for more production and perception work bringing together sociophonetics and second language acquisition.