To raise or not to raise in Pennsylvania German English in Canada
This study investigates the degree to which Canadian Raising occurs in the Pennsylvania German English (PGE) speech of Old Order Mennonites (OOMs) in southern Ontario by reference to sociolinguistic interviews conducted between 2018 and 2019. Traditionally an isolated community resistant to change, there is now increasing exposure to the wider Canadian population for at least some OOMs. Adapting resources of the majority community, some OOMs are participating in the change towards Canadian Raising, a process that is largely complete in the wider CanE speech community. It seems that Raising indexes more outwards-oriented stances, whereas non-Raising indexes more community-centric stances. Impressionistically, Raising seems to be more advanced in /aʊ/ than in /aɪ/ sounds. The context of this study is perfectly suited for understanding local and translocal dynamics in a language contact situation, particularly in relation to stylistic practices in third wave sociolinguistics.
