The role of genre association in Sung Dialect categorization

Genre-associated sociocultural cues may influence dialect recognition when listening to music. Previous work identifies genre-specific sociolects [Coupland, 2011, J. Socioling. 15]; singers make genre-dependent production changes [Gibson, 2019, U.Canterbury Diss.]; and accent is perceived with greater ease in song compared to speech [Mageau et al., 2019, Phonetica 76]. However, the role of genre associations in dialect categorization has not been sufficiently addressed. Our previous work suggests that genre identification may play a larger role in this than auditory speech cues [Walter et al., 2023, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 154]. We investigate this further using a dialect-identification task with improved “spoken” stimuli. Participants heard sung clips (original instrumental-free vocals) and manipulated “spoken” clips (instrumental-free vocals, monotonized and rhythm-normalized) from counterbalanced genres with greater ease of vocal isolation: U.S. folk with some intra-genre dialect variation, and blues with strong associations to African American English [De Timmerman et al., 2024, J. Socioling. 28]. A superior vocal remover and lyrical transcripts were implemented. As predicted, in the sung context, participants identified genre-associated dialects consistently for both genres, but slightly more so for blues. Varied responses to the “spoken” context supports that listeners use genre information in musical dialect perception.