Migration, Accommodation and Language Change: Language at the Intersection of Regional and Ethnic Identity

215 Pages·2008·2.62 MB·English

by  Bridget L. Anderson (auth.)

Migration, Accommodation and Language Change
PalgraveMacmillanStudiesinLanguageVariation
The study of language variation in social context, and the study of specific
languagecommunitiesindetail,arecentraltothelinguisticenterprise.Inthis
series we look for impressive first-hand fieldwork from speech communities
of various kinds, analysed within a range of frameworks, quantitative and
qualitative. All work reported in the series will raise important arguments
aboutmethodologiesforresearchinglanguageinsocialcontext,withanalysis
thatchallengesorextendscurrenttheorybuilding.
Titlesinclude:
BridgetL.Anderson
MIGRATION,ACCOMMODATIONANDLANGUAGECHANGE
LanguageattheIntersectionofRegionalandEthnicIdentity
JonathanMarshall
LANGUAGECHANGEANDSOCIOLINGUISTICS
RethinkingSocialNetworks
DanielSchreier
ISOLATIONANDLANGUAGECHANGE
ContemporaryandSociohistoricalEvidencefromTristandaCunhaEnglish
PalgraveMacmillanStudiesinLanguageVariation
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Migration,
Accommodation and
Language Change
Language at the Intersection of Regional
and Ethnic Identity
Bridget L. Anderson
OldDominionUniversity
©BridgetL.Anderson2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-00886-1
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Anderson,BridgetL.,1972(cid:3)
Migration,accommodationandlanguagechange:languageatthe
intersectionofregionalandethnicidentity/BridgetL.Anderson.
p. cm.“(Palgravestudiesinlanguagevariationseries)
Includesindex.
1. Englishlanguage“Variation“UnitedStates. 2. English
language“Dialects“UnitedStates. 3. Englishlanguage“Social
aspects“UnitedStates. I. Title.
PE2841.A2152008
427(cid:2).973“dc22
2007048692
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
This book, my first, is dedicated to my teachers: Walt
Wolfram, Lesley Milroy, Patrice Speeder Beddor, Erik
Thomas, Jose Benki, and Judith Irvine. Fieldwork, ethno-
graphy, vowels, methods, coarticulation, dialect contact,
language ideology(cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2)I learned so much from all of you!
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
ListofFigures xii
ListofTables xiv
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Introduction 1
2 EmpiricalandTheoreticalBackground 4
2.1 AmericanEnglishvowelshiftsinprogress 5
2.1.1 TheNorthernCitiesChainShift 5
2.1.2 TheSouthernShift 6
2.1.3 AfricanAmericanvowelsystems 7
2.1.4 /ai/ 9
2.1.5 Thehighandlower-highbackvowels/u/
and/SSS/ 11
2.2 Modelsofchange 13
2.2.1 Internalandexternalfactorsinlanguage
change 13
2.2.2 Languageideology:Anoverview 14
2.2.3 Dialectcontact 16
3 TheSociolinguisticandDemographicContextforthe
Study 18
3.1 Researchsiteanddemographyofthearea 18
3.2 HistoryofmigrationtosoutheasternMichigan 21
3.2.1 AppalachianWhitemigrationtoDetroit 21
3.2.2 AfricanAmericanmigrationtoDetroit 24
3.3 Appalachian Whites and African American
SouthernmigrantsintheDetroitarea 26
3.4 AppalachianEnglish 28
3.4.1 IntheSouthernHighlands 28
3.4.2 InSoutheasternMichigan 31
vii
viii Contents
3.5 AfricanAmericanEnglish 31
3.5.1 IntheSouth 31
3.5.2 InSoutheasternMichigan 32
3.6 MidwesternurbanWhites 33
4 ThePilotStudy 35
4.1 /ai/ 35
4.1.1 Participantsandmethodsofanalysisforthe
pilotstudy 35
4.1.2 Thepatterningof/ai/ 36
4.2 Acoustic analysis of /(cid:3)/ and /æ/ for five
AppalachianWhitewomen,fiveAfricanAmerican
women,andfiveNorthernWhitewomen 39
5 FieldTechniquesandAcousticMethods 47
5.1 Studydesign 47
5.1.1 Speakerselection 47
5.1.2 Participantobservationand
ethnography 49
5.1.3 Dataanalysis 50
5.1.4 Individualfirstversuscommunity
first 51
5.2 Fieldmethodology 53
5.2.1 Participants 53
5.2.2 Fieldworkanddatacollection 55
5.2.3 Recordingprocedures 57
5.3 Acousticanalysis 57
5.3.1 Temporallocationsandmeasures 58
5.3.2 Spectralmeasures 58
5.4 Spectralcomparisons 59
6 TheHighandLower-HighBackVowels 65
6.1 Analysis of /u/∼/i/ and /SSS/∼/G/ distances at
midpointandoffset 66
6.1.1 Methodsforthestatisticalanalysis 66
6.1.2 Descriptiveoverviewoffrontingpatterns 67
6.1.2.1 AfricanAmerican,Appalachian,
andMidwesternWhitegroups 68
6.1.2.2 AfricanAmericanandAppalachian
speakers 69
Contents ix
6.1.3 StatisticalanalysisofF distances 75
2
6.1.4 SummaryandsignificanceoftheF distance
2
results 79
6.2 Contexteffectsofconsonantsonpreceding
vowels 80
6.2.1 Effectsoffollowingalveolarconsonantal
contextonvowelspectra 81
6.2.2 Effectsoffollowinglabialconsonantal
contextonvowelspectra 83
6.2.3 Word-finalcontext 84
6.2.4 Effects of following velar consonantal
contextonvowelspectra 84
6.2.5 Summary 85
6.3 Roundingandbacking 86
6.4 Nguyen’s(2006)real-timeanalysisof/SSS/bysocial
statusforDetroitAfricanAmericansandNguyen
andAnderson’s(2006)comparisonsof/SSS/fronting
amongAfricanAmericanandMidwesternWhites
intheDetroitarea 87
6.5 NguyenandAnderson’s(2006)comparisonsof/u/
frontingamongAfricanAmericanandMidwestern
WhitesintheDetroitarea 94
6.6 Conclusion 99
7 ThePatterningof/ai/ 102
7.1 Comparisonbyethnicity,vowel,
andcontext 105
7.2 Speaker-by-speakeranalysis 110
7.2.1 Dataoverview 110
7.2.2 Statisticalanalysis 111
7.2.2.1 Maineffects 111
7.2.2.2 Interactionsofvoweland
context 116
7.2.3 ComparisonwithaMidwesternWhite
speaker 122
7.2.4 Summaryofspeaker-by-speakeranalysis 127
7.3 Thepatterningof/ai/inDetroitAfricanAmerican
EnglishreportedbyNguyen(2006) 127
7.4 Conclusion 128