onset

: This article presents the results of a study that focused on the perception of the lateral and tap variants in the complex onset, as in chiclete (gum) ~ chicrete , by university listeners, residents of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The goal was to identify to what extent the linguistic form affects the perception of social characteristics of the stimuli’ speakers. The task consisted to indicate the possible speaker of the stimulus, male or female, characterized in terms of socioeconomic profile, chosen between to photos. The study was developed based on the theoretical assumptions of Variacionist Sociolinguistics and that of exemplar-based Models. 40 participants heard 16 target sentences, containing a lexical item either with the lateral or the tap. The hypothesis is that the tap will be related to low socioeconomic profile, regardless the sex of the speaker of the stimuli, while the lateral will not be related to social characteristics. The participant’s behavior was assessed by the choice of the photo and by the response time.