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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 378

Part of Session 101: Sociophonetic research in emerging varieties (Other abstracts in this session)

Four Sociophonetic Concerns in Emerging Varieties

Authors: Preston, Dennis Richard
Submitted by: Preston, Dennis Richard (Oklahoma State University, United States of America)

Studies carried out in southern Michigan (USA) looked at 6 groups for their adaptation to  the local vowel system (the Northern Cities Chain Shift — NCCS): African Americans, Appalachian Americans, rural mid-Michiganders, Mexican Americans, Polish Americans, and Lebanese Americans. Each group, subdivided by sex, status, and age, was studied to determine their adaptation. Vowels were extracted from recorded interviews and analyzed in Praat for F1-F2 characteristics.

            The overall results show that parent system influences were obvious in the earlier generations and that younger speakers were more adjusted to the local norm.

The more detailed results suggest, however, that each group developed a system distinct from the NCCS norm, leading to 2 interpretations.

First, social factors deterred acquisition. African Americans raise and front the TRAP vowel, but do not front and lower the LOT vowel, a movement associated too strongly with European American not regional identity. Appalachian Americans used few of the NCCS vowels, but shifted from the parent variety to a more general one associated with US media norms. Since local majority speakers are not aware of their NCCS system, believing themselves to be “normal” and “standard,” they would not notice the Appalachian American shift to a wider norm as anything different from local speech. The Appalachian Americans, however, were ridiculed when they arrived in Michigan for their “hillbilly” speech and adjusted their own behavior to a more perceived standard variety, but not one that involved the characteristics of the NCCS. Loyalty to a rural lifestyle was strong in deterring mid-Michigander acquisition.

            Second, similarities arose in the systems of all groups (except the Appalachian Americans). The development of American English shows considerable asymmetry in the vowel system and is exaggerated by the NCCS, but younger speakers in this study produce a symmetric system, one with three “point” vowels (FLEECE, GOOSE, and LOT) and the mid-level, front and back, divided into two heights (high-mid and low-mid). Each of these is occupied by a peripheral-nonperipheral pair: FACE-KIT (high-mid front), BAT/BATH-DRESS (low-mid front), GOAT-FOOT (high-mid back) and THOUGHT-STRUT (low-mid back). This shared system, perceptually indistinct from the NCCS to locals, represents a drive for symmetry. It uses NCCS input data but refuses the asymmetric arrangement of phonetic positions that make it up.

            This work suggests 4 considerations in identifying emerging systems:

            1) Social identity and positioning (degree of access to local norms, motivation to acquire them, etc…), although not highlighted in this presentation.

            2) The shape of the original variety and its contrast with the target variety.

            3) Stereotypical features that carry specific social meaning.

            4) Universal tendencies, in the case presented here the preference for symmetric systems.

 

To ignore any of these runs the risk of suggesting that data are too idiosyncratic to analyze or of allowing overdependence on one of more of these categories in the absence of others. In short, the determination of emerging varieties is a real sociolinguistic consideration, one that does not skimp on either the “socio” or “linguistic” part of the enterprise.