ABSTRACT
Sociophonetics has grown rapidly in recent years, although to some extent the field lacks a consolidated aim. Sociolinguists use its name for any language variation project that involves modern phonetic techniques, while phoneticians have largely used the name for descriptive phonetic analyses involving dialectal variation. A survey of segmental and suprasegmental studies shows that projects under the rubric of sociophonetics have revealed a great deal about the breadth of dialectal variation and change in fine phonetic details. The more sophisticated studies of social indexicality have seldom adopted advanced phonetic methods, however, creating a gulf between socio-indexical and sociophonetic approaches. Socio-perceptual studies are beginning to bridge that gulf, showing how metalinguistic information is cognitively tied to linguistic forms. These studies provide sociophonetics with a needed focus by addressing critical questions about the cognition of language.
