Sound Effects

Tracing the Origins of Social Meaning in Phonetic Variation

Welcome!

German doesn't sound the same everywhere it's spoken. And it's not judged the same everywhere either.

The research project Sound Effects investigates how regional language features are perceived in German-speaking Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

As a collaborative project between the Institute of German Studies and the Center for the Study of Language and Society at the University of Bern, we combine linguistic research with questions about perception, identity and social significance of linguistic variation in German.

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Meet the Team

PI – Project Management

Prof. Dr. Adrian Leemann

Adrian is Co-PI of the project. In his research, he combines sociolinguistic approaches with German dialectology to investigate the foundations of language variation and language change from a sociolinguistic perspective.

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PI – Project Management

Prof. Dr. Erez Levon

Erez is Co-PI of the project. His research explores the production and perception of socially meaningful patterns of linguistic variation, examining how language reflects identities such as gender or social class, as well as broader structures of social inequality.

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Postdoc – Working Group Leader

Dr. Tillmann Pistor

Tillmann leads the project's working group. His research models the relationships between phonetic variation and socially significant judgments in the D-A-CH area.

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PhD Student – Research Assistant

Elijah King, MA

Elijah explores how orientation towards location and social networks influences the perception and production of linguistic variation and fine phonetic differences in various stylistic contexts.

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PhD Student – Research Assistant

Gina Schaffer, MA

Gina investigates how listeners identify and localize dialects and sound variation, and how linguistic, political, and perceptual borders shape this process and their evaluation.

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student assistant

Liliane Schenk, BA

Liliane is currently supporting the project with data preparation and analysis. She is studying for a Master's degree in Sociolinguistics and her thesis focuses on the effects of language attitudes in the asylum system.

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Our work

The project focuses on the perception of the sound-related aspects of linguistic variation in the German-speaking world (D-A-CH region). Through a series of perception tests, we combine modern methods from sociolinguistics and (social) psychology and analyze them both quantitatively and qualitatively. This will generate an empirically grounded picture of how the social significance of regional speech patterns arises from specific characteristics.

We also hope that this project will make an important contribution to the perception of linguistic variation and to the study of language change. If we understand the social meanings that linguistic features carry and how socially relevant these evaluations are, we will be able to formulate testable hypotheses and predictions about which linguistic features are more likely to be retained, modified, or even abandoned by speaker communities in the long term. Ultimately, this will allow us to better understand how language changes under the influence of social dynamics.

Furthermore, the project's results offer direct societal benefits. For example, they enable empirically based awareness campaigns regarding linguistic biases and the promotion of equal opportunities in dealing with regional variation in human resources and education.

Publications

Pistor, T., Siebenhaar, B. & Leemann, A. (in prep.): Phonetic Distance Outweighs Attitudes in Predicting Social Judgments of Swiss German Dialects. Journal of Language Variation and Sociolinguistics.
Pistor, T. & Leemann, A. (2024): Echoes of Implicit Bias. Exploring Aesthetics and Social Meanings of Swiss German Dialect Features. Proceedings Interspeech 2024. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2024-2013.

Lectures, presentations and workshops

Pistor, T., Leemann, A., Levon, E. , King, E., Schaffer, G. (kommend): Sound Effects – Tracing the Origins of Social Meaning in Phonetic Variation. Poster & Flash Talk. Day of Swiss Linguistics, 03.06.2026, Lugano, Schweiz.
Pistor, T., King, E., Schaffer, G., Leemann, A. & Levon, E. (forthcoming): "To Whom Does This Belong?" – Mapping Speech, Region, and Social Meaning of German Varieties Across the DACH Area. Lecture. ICLaVE 2026, June 26th – July 2nd, 2026, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Leemann, A., Levon, E. , Pistor, T., Schaffer, G., King, E. (forthcoming): Sound Effects – Tracing the Origins of Social Meaning in Phonetic Variation. Posters. ICLaVE 2026, June 26th – July 2nd, 2026, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Pistor, T., Leemann, A. & Siebenhaar, B. (2025): Phonetic Distance vs. Social Factors in Sociophonetic Evaluations of Swiss German. Poster. Phonetics and Phonology in German-Speaking Countries 2025, October 6–7, 2025. Leipzig, Germany (Winner of the Poster Prize).
Pistor, T. & Leemann, A. (2025): Sociophonetic evaluations of Swiss German dialect features. Presentation. 8th Congress of the International Society for Dialectology of German (IGDD), 18–20 September 2025, Berlin, Germany.
Pistor, T. & Leemann, A. (2024): From stereotype to aesthetics and back – Sociophonetic evaluations of Swiss German dialect features. Presentation. 21st Workshop on Alemannic Dialectology (ALTA), September 9–11, 2024, Bern, Switzerland.
Pistor, T. & Leemann, A. (2024): Exploring Aesthetics and Social Meanings of Swiss German Dialect Features. Lecture. Interspeech 2024, September 1st – 5th, 2024, Kos, Greece.
Pistor, T. & Leemann, A. (2024): Beyond Sounds and Stereotypes – Exploring Phonaesthetic Perceptions of Swiss German Dialects. Presentation. ICLaVE 2024, July 8–11, 2024, Vienna, Austria.
Pistor, T. (2024): Swiss German Phonaesthetics – On the scientific beauty of Swiss German sounds. Pop-Sci lecture. Pints of Science, 15.05.24, Bern, Switzerland.
Pistor, T. (2024): On the modeling of a sociolinguistic sound aesthetics. Lecture. Linguistics Colloquium, January 10, 2024, Marburg, Germany.