Language & Politics in the New South

2021 ~ Present | DILAC, Dr. Jon Forrest, Assistant Professor of Linguistics (UGA)

Goals

WILL RETURN FALL 2023

 

With an approval from the Georgia Tech IRB, we are in the process of building and transcribing a corpus of recorded audio interviews with Georgia Tech students. (So far, we have recorded and transcribed 25 interviews, but we aim for over 100 to get enough data for each of the different demographic and political affiliations that interest us.)  We use phonetic software to measure the position of the tongue in the mouth when producing vowels to quantify the idea of a “southern accent” to explore the hypothesis that more-conservative young Georgians may use more-“southern” accents. We are also conducting perception studies, gathering data on how “southern” people sound, to explore whether the perceived “southernness” of their accent correlates with phonetic measurements and/or with perceptions of their race/ethnicity and/or how “conservative” or “liberal” they sound.  Broadly, this project explores the role of (political) ideology in accents and language change.  Students build skills in interviewing, data management, qualitative and quantitative analysis, web surveys/experiments, phonetic measurements, statistics, and the presentation of academic results to varied audiences.

Some of our participants consented to share a short clip of themselves reading a story as public data.  (For all our participants, the part where they talk in more detail about their lives is private because it is more personal). If you want to hear what young Georgia Tech students sound like today (do they have "southern accents"?), you are welcome to listen to these clips! https://osf.io/9rvtn/
 

Issues Involved or Addressed

 Language, politics, society, linguistics, psychology, demographics, speech

Methods and Technologies

  • Praat (phonetics software)
  • Qualtrics
  • Mechanical Turk
  • Python
  • R

Academic Majors of Interest

  • BusinessAccounting
  • BusinessFinance
  • BusinessGeneral Management
  • BusinessGlobal Development
  • BusinessIT Management
  • BusinessLeadership and Organizational Change
  • BusinessMarketing
  • BusinessOperations and Supply Chain Management
  • BusinessStrategy and Innovation
  • ComputingAlgorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization
  • ComputingAnalytics
  • ComputingComputational Media
  • ComputingComputational Science and Engineering
  • ComputingComputer Science
  • ComputingCybersecurity
  • ComputingHuman-Centered Computing
  • ComputingHuman-Computer Interaction
  • ComputingOMSCS asynchronous
  • ComputingOMSCS asynchronous, case-by-case
  • ComputingOMSCS synchronous
  • ComputingOMSCS synchronous, case-by-case
  • DesignArchitectural Technology
  • DesignArchitecture
  • DesignBuilding Construction
  • DesignBuilding Construction and Facility Management
  • DesignCity and Regional Planning
  • DesignGeographic Information Science and Technology
  • DesignIndustrial Design
  • DesignMusic Technology
  • DesignUrban Design
  • EngineeringAerospace Engineering
  • EngineeringApplied Systems Engineering
  • EngineeringBioengineering
  • EngineeringBioinformatics
  • EngineeringBiomedical Engineering
  • EngineeringChemical Engineering
  • EngineeringChemical and Biomolecular Engineering
  • EngineeringCivil Engineering
  • EngineeringComputer Engineering
  • EngineeringElectrical Engineering
  • EngineeringEnvironmental Engineering
  • EngineeringHealth Systems
  • EngineeringIndustrial Engineering
  • EngineeringInternational Logistics
  • EngineeringMachine Learning
  • EngineeringMaterials Science and Engineering
  • EngineeringMechanical Engineering
  • EngineeringMedical Physics
  • EngineeringRobotics
  • Ivan AllenApplied Languages and Intercultural Studies
  • Ivan AllenChinese
  • Ivan AllenDigital Media
  • Ivan AllenEconomics
  • Ivan AllenEconomics and International Affairs
  • Ivan AllenFrench
  • Ivan AllenGerman
  • Ivan AllenGlobal Economics and Modern Languages
  • Ivan AllenGlobal Media and Cultures
  • Ivan AllenHistory, Technology, and Society
  • Ivan AllenInternational Affairs
  • Ivan AllenInternational Affairs and Modern Languages
  • Ivan AllenInternational Affairs, Science, and Technology
  • Ivan AllenJapanese
  • Ivan AllenKorean
  • Ivan AllenLiterature, Media, and Communication
  • Ivan AllenPublic Policy
  • Ivan AllenSpanish
  • OtherEducation
  • OtherEntrepreneurship
  • OtherFilm and Media Studies
  • OtherMusic
  • OtherPre-Law
  • Physics
  • SciencesApplied Physics
  • SciencesApplied Physiology
  • SciencesBiochemistry
  • SciencesBiology
  • SciencesChemistry
  • SciencesEarth and Atmospheric Sciences
  • SciencesMathematics
  • SciencesNeuroscience
  • SciencesPhysics
  • SciencesPsychology
  • SciencesStatistics

Preferred Interests and Preparation

Language / Society / Politics

Experience with or willingness to learn qualitative and quantitative data analysis skills.

Completion of LING 2100 (Intro to Linguistics) not a strict requirement.

 

Meeting Schedule & Location

Time 
5:00-5:50
Meeting Location 
Klaus 1440
Meeting Day 
Thursday

Team Advisors

Dr. Lelia Glass

Partner(s) and Sponsor(s)

DILAC, Dr. Jon Forrest, Assistant Professor of Linguistics (UGA)

Related Sites