Special issue of Language and Speech

The goal of this special issue of Language and Speech is to highlight recent work exploring sociolinguistic variation in prosody. The papers will be based in part on talks and poster presentations from the recent “Experimental and Theoretical Advances in Prosody” conference (ETAP4, etap4.krisyu.org) which featured a special theme entitled: “Sociolectal and dialectal variability in prosody.” Note, however, that this is an open call and submissions are not restricted to papers presented at the conference.

As in many language fields, studies of prosody have focused on majority languages and dialects and on speakers who hold power in social structures. The goal of this special issue is to diversify prosody research in terms of the languages and dialects being investigated, as well as the social structures that influence prosodic variation. The issue brings together prosody researchers and researchers exploring sociological variation in prosody, with a focus on the prosody of marginalized dialects and prosodic differences based on gender and sexuality.

We invite proposals for papers that will:

• Establish the broad questions in sociolinguistics that would especially benefit from prosodic research

• Address the theoretical and methodological challenges and opportunities that come with studying sociolinguistic prosodic variation

• Share best practices for engaging in prosodic research of understudied languages and social groups to address linguistic bias

We especially encourage proposals for papers that focus on the prosody of marginalized dialects and prosodic differences based on gender and sexuality.

The editors of the special issue will be Meghan Armstrong-Abrami, Mara Breen, Shelome Gooden, Erez Levon, and Kristine Yu.  The editors will review submitted paper proposals and then invite authors of selected proposals to submit full papers. Each invited paper will be handled by one of the editors and reviewed by 2-3 additional reviewers. Based on the reviews, the editors plan to accept 10-12 papers for publication in this special issue. Please note that publication is not guaranteed in this special issue. Invited papers will undergo the standard Language and Speech review process and be subject to Language and Speech author guidelines (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/language-and-speech#submission-guidelines). Invited papers can be short reports or full reports (see author guidelines, section 1.2).

Paper proposals in PDF file format must be sent to etap4umass@gmail.com by May 15, 2019. Proposals must not be more than 1 page (with an additional page allowed for figures, examples, and references). Authors of selected proposals will be invited to submit their full papers, which will be due by 12/15/19. Acceptance/rejection notifications will be sent in early 2020 with editorial comments. We are hoping to submit our final proofs to the journal by summer 2020.