Hadodo, M. J. (2023). Hellenes and Romans: Oppositional characterological figures and the enregisterment of Istanbul Greek. Journal of sociolinguistics.

Johnstone, B. (2017). Characterological figures and expressive style in the enregisterment of linguistic variety. Language and a sense of place: Studies in language and region, 283-300.

Montgomery, C., & Moore, E. (2018). Evaluating S(c)illy voices: The effects of salience, stereotypes, and co-present language variables on real-time reactions to regional speech. Language, 94(3), 629-661.

Snell, J. (2017). Enregisterment, indexicality and the social meaning of ‘howay’: Dialect and identity in north-east England. In Language and a Sense of Place: Studies in Language and Region

The enregisterment of speech styles is increasingly explored in relation to personal lived experience (Johnstone, 2017; Snell 2017). However, as Blommaert (2015) and others have argued, social meaning is scalar and consequent questions of how local and for whom speech styles are enregistered have not yet been thoroughly examined. This study addresses this issue by combining ethnographic and experimental methods to establish how social meanings of language are situated in the lived experiences of listeners. Specifically, I test whether Greek listeners from different backgrounds recognize the features of Istanbul Greek (IG) and whether they associate the same social meanings with the variety IG-speakers themselves do.

The IG community is an indigenous minoritized group with ~2,000 speakers remaining in Turkey. Ethnographic accounts demonstrate multiple linguistic features across structural levels that speakers perceive as distinct from Standard Modern Greek (SMG) (Hadodo, 2023). Despite certain features forming supralocal isoglosses, such as lateral velarization also found in Northern Greek, more frequent and advanced usages have led them to become indexical of the local variety for IG-speakers. Interviews with 81 IG-speakers demonstrate that lateral velarization, accusative usage for the historic dative, and particular lexical items are among the most salient IG features. Some features are also found in other “peripheral” Greek varieties such as certain verbal conjugations. These and other linguistic features are tied to other social differences including sartorial and culinary practices that have led IG-speakers to enregister themselves as generally more sophisticated and cosmopolitan than SMG-speakers.

To further address the enregisterment of IG, a modified version of Montgomery & Moore’s (2018) verbal guise experiment was conducted. 56 Greek listeners of diverse backgrounds (including those with varying exposure to IG) were presented a series of short (∼30 sec) clips of 8 speakers (4 IGs and 4 SMGs; half men and women all in their 30s during recording). Listeners rated speakers on a variety of personality scales to determine whether the same social meanings circulating among IG-speakers for their variety hold more generally. In a second task, raters were presented with the same clips and provided open responses to specify what they viewed as indicative of speakers’ origin, helping contextualize responses to IG features connected to place-based and other meanings.

Results show that IG-listeners are better at placing IG-speakers than SMG-listeners and that SMG-listeners evaluate IG speech differently. Non-IG listeners noted lateral velarization but associate it with northern Greece rather than Istanbul. However, the confluence of IG features co-present in multiple Greek varieties a) hindered non-IG-listeners from placing speakers and b) allowed for the social meaning of other stigmatized varieties to influence listeners’ judgements based on their personal experiences with them. These findings add nuance to understandings of how enregisterment occurs within (sub)communities, and how social meanings are unevenly distributed among speakers of a group. Combining ethnography with experimentation allows researchers to further consider the role of lived experience in the assignment of social meaning and the circulation of characterological figures that contribute to social differentiation.