1 Awareness, Salience, and Stereotypes in Exemplar-Based Models of Speech Production and Perception

The contributions to this volume discuss the degree to which awareness plays a role in how language is produced (Babel, Zimman), acquired (Nycz), and processed (Beck, Carmichael, Squires). The conclusions underscore the need for models of speech production and perception that can account for different amounts of awareness and attention. In this chapter, we seek to lay out how awareness, salience, and stereotypes are implemented within exemplar-based models of speech production and perception, reflecting on predictions that these models make in regard to awareness and salience. Before addressing how awareness and salience might work within exemplar-based models of speech, let’s talk briefly about awareness and how the term is used. Sometimes researchers use the term to refer to an awareness of a social category (e.g. Jock) or a linguistic variant (e.g. fishin’), and other times they refer to the awareness of a relationship between a social category and a linguistic variant (e.g. Midwesterners say ‘pop’). These differences matter when considering if/how awareness is represented in the mind and when thinking about the cognitive processes through which awareness might influence speech. In this chapter, we focus on the last of these types of awareness: the awareness of a sociolinguistic variable. But what do we even mean by awareness? Awareness is usually taken to mean one’s consciousness of events or experiences. Some prior instance of noticing is required for awareness, but deliberate effort and instruction are not. In line with Squires (this volume) and others (Bowers 1984; Schmidt 1990), we differentiate between noticing a difference (which leads to awareness) and perceiving a difference (which, in the absence of noticing, does not). Perception without awareness is possible because many cognitive processes are automatic or reflexive, which contrast with processes that are controlled or reflective (Lieberman 2003; Schneider and Shiffrin 1977; Shastri and Ajjanagadde 1993). As Lieberman explains, “controlled processes . . . typically involve some combination of effort, intention, and awareness, tend to interfere with one another, and are usually experienced as self-generated thoughts. Automatic processes . . . typically lack effort, intention, or awareness, tend not to interfere with one another, and are usually experienced as perceptions or feelings”