An evaluation of usage-based approaches to the modelling of sociophonetic variability

• Exemplar theory offers a usage-based perspective on sociophonetic variation.
• Important details of exemplar theory remain to be resolved: (i) How social-indexical and lexical-propositional channels are integrated. (ii) Implications of foregrounding individuals in a model of phonological knowledge. (iii) How signal-based information is moderated by pre-existing phonological knowledge.

The aim of this paper is to provide a sociophonetic perspective on debate relating to the role of usage-based approaches in accounting for language variation. The bulk of the paper focuses on the potential inherent within exemplar-based models of phonological representation to account for the production, processing and acquisition of social-indexical information woven into the speech signal alongside lexical-propositional content. The critical evaluation which is developed within the paper focuses on the integration of the social-indexical channel with other strands of information within the speech signal, on the extent to which the performance of individual speakers is seen as relevant in accounts of production, perception and acquisition, and on how, within a usage-based approach such as an exemplar-model, an appropriate balance can be achieved between bottom-up and top-down processing of the phonetic substance contained within the speech signal.