Introducing a web app for widespread collection of sociophonetic data

Harnessing the power of recent technological developments that make remote collection of high-quality audio recordings feasible, we present a web app for collecting sociophonetic and other linguistic data in an educational, gamified way. It includes four components: (1) an account system allowing for participants’ data from multiple tasks to be linked confidentially and for participants to create sub-profiles to collect data from others who would not use the app on their own (e.g., grandparents, kids); (2) linguistic data collection including production, perception, and survey tasks; (3) an entertaining educational component focused on dispelling language myths and engaging the public with linguistic issues; and (4) a reward system where participants earn badges and points by completing tasks and engaging with the educational component. Our first study to use it will map prevelar vowel production across North American English from user-suppliedaudio recordings. Another will collect peer perceptions of teens with cochlear implants from audio samples. A third will follow students’ second-language abilities longitudinally after graduation. As we prepare for full-scale rollout, we invite feedback and suggestions for future expansion into other types of linguistic experiments and the utility for others to run experiments on our platform.