A longitudinal analysis of the durability of the Northern-Midland dialect boundary in Ohio (original) (raw)
Related papers
Farewell to the Founders: Major Dialect Changes Along the East-West New England Border
2012
"Hans Kurath’s 1939 Linguistic Atlas of New England reported a significant east-west dialect contrast along the Green mountains of Vermont. In 1987, using data from 1960s fieldwork for the Dictionary of American Regional English, Craig Carver found the contrast remained intact a generation later. Such results reflect the enduring influence of eighteenth-century settlers, known as the Principle of first effective Settlement or the “founder effect.” to determine the current status of the east-west dialect contrast and whether the founder effect is still present, the authors examined 62 speakers along the border in both real and apparent time. the real-time results show that, among older speakers, Kurath’s east west line of traditional New england features has moved eastward to the state border of New hampshire. the apparenttime results show that many traditional eastern variants are receding among younger speakers, and these linguistic changes are reflecting and constructing significant social changes occurring in this region. for about two centuries, the east-west contrasts of the early european settlements were faithfully transmitted to each new generation. But now, among the current generations of speakers, the founder effect in northern New england is rapidly dissipating. "
Multiple vectors of unidirectional dialect change in eastern New England
2014
"Traditional eastern New England (ENE) dialect features are rapidly receding in many parts of northern New England. Because this ENE shift involves seven different phonological features, it provides a prime opportunity to explore different rates of change across multiple linguistic variables at the same time in the same social setting. The present study is the first acoustic sociophonetic investigation of central New Hampshire, and it is based on new field data from 51 adult speakers. Results show that young generations are discarding many traditional ENE pronunciations in favor of leveled, nonregional forms, yet the changes are affecting some variables more quickly than others. Many distinctive traditional ENE variants (nonrhotic speech, intrusive-r, fronted FATHER, “broad-a” in BATH) are quickly receding, while others (fronted START and HOARSE/HORSE distinction) are somewhat more conservative, being “overshadowed” by the presence of (r) as a variable within the same syllable. We frame our apparent-time analysis in terms of Sankoff’s (2013a) notion of “age vectors” and Labov’s (2012) “outward orientation” of the language faculty, illustrating how different generations are juggling multiple age vectors within the same overall shift, and how one variable can overshadow another variable within the same syllable."
Measuring boundaries in the dialect continuum
2015
Keywords: dialectology; dialectometry; linguistic data; boundary statistics; fuzzy boundaries GIScience has only rarely dealt with linguistic data so far despite its challenging nature with many peculiarities that make analysing spatial language variation a worthwhile endeavour. The two commonly used paradigms in dialectology to deal with dialectal areas in space, the dialect continuum and isoglosses, respectively, correspond to the dichotomy of fields vs. entities found in GIScience. These two ways of conceptualising dialectal boundaries engrain the problems that the quantitative analysis of delineations of language areas is facing. We present initial steps of a project that aims at quantitatively modelling language area formation and the influences of geographic factors on boundaries between dialect areas. We start by analysing the distinctive features of language data that set them apart from other types of data commonly dealt with in GIScience. We then phrase the key questions that guide the analysis of dialectal boundaries, and we propose a range of GIScience methods that can be used to answer these questions. We also present preliminary results of applying some of the proposed methods on Swiss German syntax data.
City and country: dialect acquisition in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York - Julian Rauter
2016
Individuals moving from one dialect-specific area to another often pick up some characteristics of the new region's speech patterns. Dialect acquisition is subtle in adults and therefore understudied in the field of sociolinguistics. This study collected speech samples from natives of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York and Catskill residents originally from the New York City Metropolitan Area. A perceptual methodology using a 9-point scale was employed to determine acquisition (Munro et al. 1999). Post-hoc tests showed that ratings of the two groups differed significantly (p < 0.0001), but 33% of migrant ratings fell on the 'Catskill' end of the spectrum. This supported the hypothesis that the migrants would exhibit an intermediate degree of Catskill dialect. Qualitative data from interviews collected in this study pointed to the existence of a social conflict between Catskill natives and migrants from downstate, which poses a possible barrier to acquisition. Both groups exhibited some degree of prejudice toward the other, which can be partially attributed to issues of linguistic prestige in the Catskill dialect. “Ciudad y campo: adquisición del dialecto en las montañas Catskill de Nueva York, al norte del estado” Las personas que se mudan de una zona dialectal a otra frecuentemente asimilan características del discurso de la nueva región. La adquisición del dialecto no está muy marcada en adultos y, por lo tanto, apenas se estudia en el ámbito de la sociolingüística. En este estudio, se recogieron muestras del discurso de nativos de las montañas de Catskill, en el norte del estado de Nueva York, y de los residentes de Catskill procedentes de la zona metropolitana de la ciudad de Nueva York. Se empleó una metodología perceptiva que utiliza una escala de 9 puntos con el fin de determinar la adquisición (Munro et al. 1999). Posteriormente, las pruebas han demostrado que los grupos difieren significativamente (p < 0,0001), pero que el 33% de los ratios de inmigrantes cayeron en el extremo del espectro de Catskill. Estos resultados apoyan la hipótesis de que los inmigrantes exhiban un grado intermedio de dialecto de Catskill. Los datos cualitativos de las entrevistas recogidas en este estudio señalan la existencia de un conflicto social entre nativos de Catskill e inmigrantes del sur del estado, lo que podría plantearse como un posible obstáculo para la adquisición. Ambos grupos mostraron prejuicios en distintos grados hacia el otro, lo que, probablemente, pueda atribuirse a cuestiones de prestigio lingüístico en el dialecto de Catskill.
City and country: dialect acquisition in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York
2016
espanolCiudad y campo: adquisicion del dialecto en las montanas Catskill de Nueva York, al norte del estado. Las personas que se mudan de una zona dialectal a otra frecuentemente asimilan caracteristicas del discurso de la nueva region. La adquisicion del dialecto no esta muy marcada en adultos y, por lo tanto, apenas se estudia en el ambito de la sociolinguistica. En este studio, se recogieron muestras del discurso de nativos de las montanas de Catskill, en el norte del estado de Nueva York, y de los residentes de Catskill procedentes de la zona metropolitana de la ciudad de Nueva York. Se empleo una metodologia perceptiva que utiliza una escala de 9 puntos con el fin de determinar la adquisicion (Munro et al. 1999). Posteriormente, las pruebas han demostrado que los grupos difieren significativamente (p EnglishIndividuals moving from one dialect-specific area to another often pick up some characteristics of the new region�s speech patterns. Dialect acquisition is subtle in adults ...
Progress in dialectometry: toward explanation
2006
Abstract Dialectometric techniques analyze linguistic variation quantitatively, allowing one to aggregate over what are frequently rebarbative geographic patterns of individual linguistic variants, such as which word is used for a particular concept in a language area, or which sounds are used in particular words. This leads to general formulations of the relation between linguistic variation and explanatory factors.
In Janet Holmes and Kirk Hazen (eds.), Research Methods in Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Wiley. 246-261, 2013
This chapter considers the methodological decisions that need to be taken when conducting dialectological research on multiple geographical locations. Geographical dialectology is the oldest branch of dialect study and has made important contributions to sociolinguistics. This chapter presents the methods used in the pre-sociolinguistic era as well as more recent approaches. The student researcher needs to understand this range of methods in part because some of the earlier methods have survived to the present day. Additionally, we can problematize and critique the many different ways of deciding how to examine a particular region dialectologically, how to appropriately select speakers, and how to capture appropriate language data from them. This chapter examines how linguists have investigated the very obvious fact that different places house different dialects. We will look neither at the results of such work nor how they have been used to answer linguistic and sociolinguistic questions (see Britain, 2009, in press). Here, we simply examine the steps dialectologists take and have taken to conduct multi-locality research on language variation. In order to do so, five studies from different time periods are presented and critiqued, examining a number of key methodological elements in each:
The effect of geographic mobility on the retention of a local dialect
PhD dissertation, 2000
Several studies have demonstrated that there is a "critical period" for language acquisition ending at some point approaching puberty, beyond which language acquisition can occur only imperfectly. Other studies, primarily focusing on adolescents, have also found that this concept applies to second dialect acquisition in situations of dialect contact. Even so, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the linguistic changes that can occur in dialect contact situations. This is an important question particularly because it is such a common situation - adults are, for example, faced with constant exposure to a second dialect if they move away from where they acquired their native dialect. This study investigates this issue by comparing the linguistic perception and production of two groups of individuals, one made up of individuals who have lived in the same town their entire lives and the other made up of individuals who grew up in that town but moved away as adults. The results of sociolinguistic interviews and commutation tests are used to determine the extent to which the adult emigrants from the community gained or lost features of their native dialect, or accommodated to their new dialect. The investigation finds that adult migrants do make changes in their linguistic production and perception upon constant exposure to a second dialect, though not all features prove susceptible to change. The changes the individuals make involve both accommodations to the new dialects they are surrounded by as well as changes that do not involve such accommodation. The major generalization drawn from the data is that the linguistic features that are most susceptible to change in dialect contact situations are those features that are undergoing change in the individuals' native dialect. This result has direct applications in the field of dialectology and the speech recognition industry, as both of these fields can benefit from a deeper knowledge of the sorts of "hybridized" dialect systems than can result from dialect contact.
Acoustic Evidence for New Dialect Formation
Although Mexican American English (MAE) has attracted some attention in recent years, it remains largely understudied and misunderstood. Studies have investigated only a few of MAE’s phonetic and phonological features, leaving others completely unstudied. As a result, important theoretical questions about MAE—such as its status as a stable dialect or temporary contact variety—remain unanswered. Intensive study of the phonetic details of MAE could help to resolve these questions. In this study, we examined MAE in two disparate communities, Pearsall, in southern Texas, and Raleigh, North Carolina. While Pearsall has a long-established, majority Mexican American population, Raleigh has only recently seen an influx of Mexican and Mexican American immigrants, accounting for only a small minority of the population. Furthermore, usage of English is firmly entrenched in the Pearsall group, with the youngest generations decidedly English-dominant, while most members of the Raleigh group do not speak English or speak it as a second language. We investigated two kinds of phonetic variables, rhythm and vowel quality. Prosodic rhythm in MAE tends to be more syllable-timed than Anglo English and African American English, suggesting influence from Spanish, which is strongly syllable-timed. Similarly, vowel quality shows apparent Spanish influence. For example, MAE shows considerable resistance to the fronting of /o/, as in coat, which has swept through the Anglo populations in both states. Moreover, MAE shows less raising of pre-nasal /æ/, as in hand, which now predominates among Anglos throughout the United States. We found these tendencies in Raleigh MAE, but they also predominate and are not abating in Pearsall MAE. This evidence suggests that MAE is a stable variety, at least in southern Texas. Correspondingly, the south Texas variety of MAE may provide a model for trajectories of development in incipient Mexican American communities.