Indexical meanings of [s 1] among Copenhagen youth: Social perception of a phonetic variant in different prosodic contexts NICOLAI PHARAO LANCHART and Department of Scandinavian Studies and Linguistics University of Copenhagen, Denmark nicolaip@hum.ku.dk MARIE MAEGAARD LANCHART and Department of Scandinavian Research University of Copenhagen, Denmark mamae@hum.ku.dk JANUS SPINDLER MØLLER LANCHART, University of Copenhagen, Denmark janus@hum.ku.dk TORE KRISTIANSEN LANCHART and Department of Scandinavian Research University of Copenhagen, Denmark tk@hum.ku.dk ABSTRACT It is well documented that the same sociolinguistic feature can be used as a sociolinguistic resource with different indexical potentials in different lin- guistic as well as social contexts. Often, however, indexical meanings of a specific feature are related to or derived from one another. In this article we present the results of a perceptual study of indexical meanings of alveolar versus fronted (s)—[s] versus [s þ]—in different registers. The data consist of responses to male speakers’ use of [s] and [s þ] respectively, in two differ- ent registers that may be labelled “modern Copenhagen speech” and “street language.” Results show that the [s þ] indexes femininity and gayness when it occurs in “modern Copenhagen,” whereas the (s)-variation has a different and less significant effect when occurring in “street language.” We discuss the implications for theories of indexical fields and the relation between features and clusters of features in speakers’ perceptions. (Indexical meaning, phonetic variation, fronted /s/, perception of sexual orientation and ethnicity, matched guise technique). © Cambridge University Press, 2014 0047-4045/14 $15.00 1 Language in Society 43,1–31. doi:10.1017/S0047404513000857