Hypocorrection

Article summary

Hypocorrection is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that involves the purposeful addition of slang or a shift in pronunciation, word form, or grammatical construction and is propelled by a desire to appear less intelligible or to strike rapport. That contrasts with hesitation and modulation because rather than not having the right words to say or choosing to avoid them, the speaker chooses to adopt a nonstandard form of speech as a strategy to establish distance from or to become closer to their interlocutor. Hypocorrection may also be a phonetical or a phonological phenomenon. Most sound changes originate from two types of phonetically motivated mechanisms: hypocorrection and hypercorrection. A hypocorrective sound change occurs when a listener fails to identify and to correct the perturbations in the speech signal and takes the signal at face value.

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1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
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3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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