The aim of this paper is to provide a sociophonetic perspective on debate relating to the role
of usage-based approaches in accounting for language variation. The bulk of the paper
focuses on the potential inherent within exemplar-based models of phonological
representation to account for the production, processing and acquisition of social-indexical
information woven into the speech signal alongside lexical-propositional content. The critical
evaluation which is developed within the paper focuses on the integration of the social …