Does phonetic convergence reflect personality ?

Introduction. Phonetic convergence, or imitation, a phenomenon by which two speakers become increasingly similar in their phonetic behavior, has received considerable attention since the 1960’s and 1970’s [18, 10, 4]. In recent years it has been suggested that imitation/convergence is a driving force behind sound change [19, 17]. Our contribution to the workshop assesses the role of personality in phonetic convergence, and thus, potentially, in sound change from one individual to the next.