Speech Cues and Social Evaluation: Markers of Ethnicity, Social Class, and Age

This chapter examines the influences of speech markers related to ethnicity, social class, and age. The individuals of Spanish ethnicity spoke with quite pronounced Spanish accents, had Spanish surnames, and were also readily identifiable as individuals of Spanish ethnicity on the basis of visual cues. A person’s style of speech affects inferences about ethnicity, social class and a variety of other personal attributes. The demonstration that age can be estimated reliably from voice cues alone is the important feature of the study. To determine the relative importance of ethnicity and social class background information on the social distance judgements involving varying degrees of intimacy, analyses were carried out on the individual items. Social perception, evaluation and behaviour are significantly influenced by speech markers, which are easily perceived stimuli through which speakers provide important biological, social, and psychological information about themselves both voluntarily and otherwise.