Abstract and Acoustic Targets in Phonetic Imitation

Phonetic imitation (also called convergence or accommodation) occurs when talkers alter their pronunciation towards speech they hear. This can happen spontaneously with only a few minutes of exposure in a laboratory experiment even without instruction to imitate. While there is considerable evidence for spontaneous imitation, in many cases it is not clear exactly which aspects of the model talker are being imitated. It is possible to imitate the raw acoustics of the model's voice or more abstract targets like normalised acoustics of the model's voice, phonological patterns the model exhibits, or speech style. Although there is substantial literature demonstrating convergent speech behaviour, existing work typically does not distinguish between these different types of targets. This has theoretical implications for accounts of imitation and normalisation, methodological significance for analysis of imitation studies, and potential applied significance for how imitation is used in language teaching and clinical speech therapy. This paper will review these issues, discuss the statistical challenges associated with measuring convergence to competing targets, and make methodological recommendations for future studies.