Open Access"We Pray for Our Nation an(d) Our Worl(d)"
Author(s) -
Stella Takvoryan
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
lifespans and styles
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2057-1720
DOI - 10.2218/ls.v7i2.2021.6639
Subject(s) - white (mutation) , prayer , context (archaeology) , race (biology) , presidential system , index (typography) , psychology , linguistics , history , social psychology , political science , sociology , religious studies , politics , law , gender studies , computer science , philosophy , world wide web , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , gene
This paper examines the effect of race, context, and white public space on the extent to which speakers articulate, hyperarticulate, hypo-articulate, or glottalize word-final English alveolar stops -/t/ and -/d/ in the controlled environment of the quadrennial US Presidential Inaugural Prayer. It shows that African-American speakers hyperarticulated and articulated /t,d/ more frequently than the white speaker, who hypo-articulated and glottalized /t,d/ consistently, especially on words like God, Lord, and Christ. These results suggest that the highly formal context required African-American speakers to perform /t,d/ to index themselves as authorities to an unfamiliar, white audience, while the white speaker did not consider race to influence listeners’ judgements of him, allowing him to index familiarity and trustworthiness.