Aspects of the Acoustic Analysis of Imitation 387speakers to be from elsewhere, even for the Keyser speaker, who is from
West Vi rg i n ia.
- Conclusions
In terms of objections to the general study of imitation described previously,
it is clear that we need to reconsider previous notions about the character
of imitation speech and the utility in studying it. It has been shown before
that some individuals are capable of quite accurately producing a variety of
speech that is acoustically different from their everyday repertoire; that is, the
consistency and accuracy present in the performances questions the notion of
“vernacular” speech. This kind of data requires reconsideration of what com-
prises a person’s “vernacular” and therefore the primacy of the “attention to
speech” paradigm.^4 We must also expand our expectations of the ability of the
human linguistic repertoire. LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985: 182) pointed
out that speakers can proactively assert a style if they have the motivation and
ability, and “style” has become an important area of study in sociolinguistics
Figure 16.4 Mean scores for all speakers.