Lectal acquisition and linguistic stereotype formation 229The four accents were not chosen randomly. Three of the accents (Gali-
cia, Madrid and Andalucía) are sufficiently geographically and linguistical-
ly different from one another to constitute a representative sample of ac-
cents that convey a cluster of phonetic features ranging high on perceptual
salience. In the case of the Canarian Islands, diachronic reasons apart and
specifically with the purpose of an analysis of folk perception in mind, the
accent may best be described in terms of a subcategorization of speech
from Andalucía. The distinctive features are thus less salient with respect to
southern speech in general and presumably not easily identified as a speech
pattern stemming specifically from the Canarian Islands. Furthermore, the
four accents range from high to low on a scale of relative salience of social
stereotyping. Table 1 captures these dimensions.
Table 1. Degrees of social stereotyping and formal distinctiveness
Accents stereotyping Social distinctiveness LinguisticAndalucía (Sevilla x 2) high highCanarias (Santa Cruz deTenerife x 2) low highGalicia (Pontevedra/Lugo) low fairly lowMadrid (Madrid x 2) (default) (default)Speech patterns stemming from Seville are highly distinctive in terms of
formal features when compared with the speech patterns which are typical
of Madrid (the default, standard accent) and highly stereotyped in the me-
dia: socially stereotyped characters in films and TV series frequently speak
with accents from Andalucía. Accents from Galicia are much less stereo-
typed than speech from Andalucía and linguistically less distinctive, too,
when compared to the speech patterns of Madrid. At the level of accent, i.e.
when the grammar is excluded, differences lie more in intonation than in
phonetics and phonology (cf. section 4). A Canarian accent, in turn, rates
almost as high on formal distinctiveness as speech from Andalucía, but as
low on social stereotyping as Galicia. By feeding these variables into the
stimuli predictions may now be made regarding the question of whether
formal distinctiveness or the degree of social stereotyping influences the
degree of correct identification the most.