Educational orientation and micro-choices in language change
In order to address questions of language change in rural dialects, we examine how adolescent speakers deploy both changing and stable linguistic variables to create anew the sociolinguistic fabric of their community. This paper draws from recent work in WV schools to assess the sociolinguistic choices 21st-century teenagers face in developing their own dialect identity within their educational contexts. Although the Southern Vowel Shift surged throughout WV until WWII, several stages became increasingly negatively socially marked as the 20th century wore on. This presentation examines awareness of these trends as well as the identities behind synchronic variation. We answer how adolescents’ ongoing recreation of their social meanings builds community patterns that lead to synchronic variation and language change. This study looks at the sociolinguistic space from the individual to the community—the crucible of language variation—to search for the triggering mechanisms for both maintenance of variation patterns and language change.
Rhoticity and shifting ethnic identity in New Orleans English
New Orleans English is shifting towards non-rhoticity. We argue that ethnic affiliation is central to understanding the ways this change is progressing. Reading passage data for 102 speakers from Greater New Orleans was examined in a mixed effects logistic regression, which revealed an interaction between birth year and ethnicity/location. Older Black New Orleanians and older White suburbanites are highly nonrhotic, while older Creole and White New Orleanians both show much lower rates of non-rhoticity. However, in younger generations, White speakers from all over Greater New Orleans becoming more rhotic. Young Black New Orleanians maintain the low levels previously attested, and young Creoles now align with this population rather than with Whites. We note the ways this pattern mirrors trends in other US cities of Black and White speech diverging, while accounting for the Creole population’s shift in ethnic identity.
Regional variation in the vocalic system of African American English: Different than White English, and patterns with the Great Migration
While African American English (AAE) is one of the most studied language varieties in sociolinguistics, until now there has never been a complete, national-level picture of regional variation in AAE comparable to the Atlas of North American English (ANAE). In this talk, I present the results of a nationally-representative survey of AAE-speakers vowel spaces, based on participation in an online survey and reading passage. 209 participants completed a demographic questionnaire and read a new passage, “Junebug Goes to the Barber,” designed specifically to elicit naturalistic AAE speech. I demonstrate that regional vocalic variation in AAE does not pattern with that of white Englishes, and that it patterns instead with pathways of the Great Migration. I also show that AAE cannot be characterized as having a single vowel system, and that the proposed African American Vowel Shift (AAVS) is characteristic of only one region of a handful.
English prosodic rhythm variation among Miami African and Haitian Americans
English is typically characterized as a language with high durational variability between syllable segments)— but English varieties that developed via contact with languages with low durational variability also have lower variability (e.g. Singapore English). I hypothesized that Miami African-, Cuban-, and Haitian-Americans would have low durational variability when compared with African-Americans from North Carolina because of their contact with Caribbean English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole respectively. I also expected a hierarchy of durational variability based upon the recency of language contact and languages that were in contact. I analyzed rhythm in interview speech of 34 participants. Miami Cuban-American rhythm was significantly less variable than any of the other ethnicities, but there were not consistent significant differences across rhythm measures between each of the other groups. The results suggest that linguistic differences, like phonotactics, and social differences, like identity and language attitudes, have an effect on prosodic rhythm.
