388 Betsy E. Evans
(e.g., Eckert and Rickford 2001; Coupland 2003). Deeper examination of the
social contexts and motivations for both language acquisition and perfor-
mance/style-shifting could provide insight on “attention to speech” models of
style, variation and change, and perception.
Some questions that need exploring are:
Why can some individuals imitate other dialects with great accuracy and
others not? In several instances, the ability to accurately imitate another
dialect or certain speech features varies from person to person. More
research could better establish what governs the individual variation
in the levels of accuracy of imitation, a feature that is, arguably, a
part of nearly everyone’s repertoire. Masthoff (1996: 164) noted that of
the respondents he studied, only three of the twenty respondents’ dis-
guises masked the respondent’s normal voice and that “several speak-
ers who exhibited a strong regional accent in their modal voices never
did attempt to obscure this important speaker-speci¿ c feature.” In light
of the accuracy of Zetterholm’s (2002) respondents and that of Noah,
the question of whether this is due to perceptual salience or simply
inability to control regional accent must be asked.
What is the truth about what we can and cannot do—why are there con-
À icting results on this? (Consider, for example, Roger’s [1998] Canton-
ese speaker of English and Lindsey and Hirson’s [1999] non-standard
/r/ speakers.) Other issues such as the role of F0 as a unique feature, as
mentioned before, could become more clear if more acoustic studies of
imitation and its effects on F0 were carried out.
How many/which features of a dialect must be included for a listener to
be convinced of authenticity or inauthenticity? (E.g., Noah may have
included too many features for the region he imitated but listeners
were satis¿ ed.)
What impact does imitation have on language variation and change? Eck-
ert raises the question of language acquisition and change through adop-
tion of features “off the shelf ”: “We need to ask ourselves what kinds of
changes require the kind of repeated exposure that regular social inter-
action gives, and what kinds can be taken right off the shelf”(2003: 395).
Could imitation be the same as “off the shelf” adoption?The acoustic study of imitation can provide details on the ability and
function of the human language faculty and insight into language perception.
More research needs to be carried out in this area, so that a body of compa-
rable research can emerge providing a solid base of information from which
we can draw answers to the previously asked questions.