In the first article by King and Sumner, a speaker-specific hypothesis is tested with the conclusion that "listeners respond to spoken words in speaker-specific ways" (5). My question coming out of this study is if "x"-specific can extend to written form of communication as well? For example, will the same written words elicit different responses if written in different typefaces? Or on different writing materials? My guess is yes, but to a lesser extent than the variance present in speaker-specific cues.
Podesva's analysis of the socio-linguistic tendencies of Condoleezza Rice is quite intriguing as it shows the wealth of variance that can go into the speech of an individual. I was impressed by how her voice showed her diversity more in some areas, and less in others. Notably, her Southern background is almost entirely absent; her voice seems to be free of geographical location. This may be because of her international experience, as other qualities of her diversity (education, conservative, and African-American) are more present. This case study serves to show that while it is statistically productive to use hundreds upon hundreds of individual samples to observe linguistic patterns, it is important to remember the incredible amount of complexity that can reside in a single voice.
The Sumner 2015 article sheds more light onto a situation we looked at earlier in the quarter. We were already made aware through an in-class video that people "use information conveyed solely by a voice as one piece of information"(1) when listening to speech. Now, we are made aware of how quickly this speaker-specific information is gathered: almost immediately, perhaps before any individual words are digested. For this reason, speaker-specific cues can be a tremendous source of priming, and because of how social an issue this is the applications are widespread, be they in politics, advertising, entertainment or otherwise. As a choral singer, I'm especially interested in how this can extend to musical performance as well--do speaker-specific cues exist in choir? Furthermore, because of how quickly these cues occur, is it possible that a critic will assess an ensemble's performance seconds into their first piece? This may be deserving of a formal study.
As a singer myself, it is very interesting that you brought up the idea of singing. I know that by listening to a choir, I can roughly gauge the maturity of the choir by their vowel formations. It would be interesting to see if more speaker-specific cues exist.
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