Vowe wel l Variation ation in So Southern hern Illinois inois - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Vowe wel l Variation ation in So Southern hern Illinois inois Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas – Austin douglas.s.bigham@gmail.com

Southern ern Illinois ois (SoIL)  Lower-most 16 counties of Illinois (“Egypt” in Frazer, 1987)  Part of The Ohio River Valley (Dakin, 1966)  An understudied dialect  A Rural Transition Zone  Roughly equidistant from NCS and SS urban anchors  NCS = St. Louis / SS = Memphis

Southern ern Illinois ois

Re Researc rch h Qu Question ons  What do the vowel categories of emergent adults (Arnett, 2000) in Southern Illinois look like?  With which major system are Southern Illinois vowels most similar?  How can these patterns be explained?

Ru Rural Transit ition ion Zones  e.g., The Ohio River Valley  Largely unexplored (esp. outside Ohio)  Geographic diffusion models are problematic  too far from major dialect anchors  too little contact with speakers of major dialects  Historical models aren‟t significant  SoIL has a large “shared history”  Individual histories are inaccurate  Social diffusion models are also problematic  greater homogeneity in rural areas (Gándara et al., 2001)  fewer and less distinct “communities of practice”  regional identities ARE social identities

Co Cognitive tive Ap Approache hes  MOTIVATION  Why is one variant or set of variants chosen over another?  ACCESS  How are newer dialect features, both socially-based and regionally-based, acquired?  CATEGORIZATION  Where do new features and variants fit among pre- established categories?  I focus on the MOTIVATION & CATEGORIZATION components

Method ods: s: Speakers  high school seniors, age 18  2 different schools in Southern Illinois  “Tigers” = large school (~900 students)  “Wildcats” = small school (~400 students)  ~45 miles apart  Total Speaker Pool: ~225 Participants  200 Surveys  120 “Tigers” / 80 “Wildcats”  85 Recordings 30 “Tigers” / 55 “Wildcats” 

Method ods: s: Re Recordings ngs  11 vowels, 2 contexts, 2 repetitions  (i, , e, , , , , o, , u, )  hVd bVt  ~44 vowels / speaker  Geometric normalization (Watt & Fabricius, 2002)  no significant difference for TOWN or SEX  Recordings made on a computer using Praat  head-mounted Sennheiser microphone  recorded on campus and at local cafes  F1 and F2 measured  checked via spectral slice, Praat auto-formant tracking, and visual confirmation  Steady-state midpoints or mini/max points

Method ods: s: At Attitude des s Survey  Likert Test:  40 statements, positive/negative balanced, 6-point scale  Semantic Differential Test:  82 Questions, 6-point scale  21/21: “The way people talk in Region One/Two sounds…”  20/20: “The people who live in Region One/Two are…”

Regions ns of Illino nois is

Method ods: s: An Analysis sis  50 Recordings  25 male / 25 female  33 “Wildcats” / 17 “Tigers”  31 Surveys + Recordings  21 male / 10 female  17 “Wildcats” / 14 “Tigers”

Q1 Q1. SoIL Vo Vowel Ca Categories ies  What do the vowel categories of emergent adults (Arnett, 2000) in Southern Illinois look like?  Southern Illinoisans have a lot of variation.  However, there is still a standard set of categories that speakers “work around”.

180 a-mean a-sd c-mean c-sd e-mean e-sd eh-mean eh-sd 160 i-mean i-sd ih-mean ih-sd o-mean o-sd Q-mean Q-sd 140 u-mean u-sd uh-mean uh-sd v-mean v-sd F1norm 120 100 80 60

SoIL-Stand tandar ard Vowel l Space gsb36129, 129, male, , Wildcat dcat  / /~/ / merged & low 180  /o/ back a, gsb36129-p a, SD c, gsb36129-p c, SD e, gsb36129-p e, SD  /u/ & / / eh, gsb36129-p eh, SD 160 i, gsb36129-p i, SD ih, gsb36129-p ih, SD central o, gsb36129-p o, SD Q, gsb36129-p Q, SD  / / low u, gsb36129-p u, SD 140 uh, gsb36129-p uh, SD v, gsb36129-p v, SD S(F1)(w&f) 120 100 80

180 a c e 160 eh i ih o Q 140 u uh v F1norm 120 100 80 60

Q2. Explaining ning SoIL Vowel Variation ion (part 1)  With which major system are Southern Illinois vowels most similar?  Depends on the speaker…  And there are other things as well…

Southern ern Illinois ois Vowels: s: variatio ation n gone wild!  Northern Cities Shift (NCS) features (Labov, 1991):  / / raising  / /~/ / merger and fronting  / / lowering and/or backing  / / backing  Southern Shift (SS) features (Labov, 1991):  /u/ and /o/ fronting  / / and / / raising and unmerged  /i/~/ / and /e/~/ / switch  Other things  / / lowering  /o/ backing

Q3. Explaining ning SoIL Vowel Variation ion (part 2)  How can these patterns be explained?  Speaker‟s attitudes about Southern Illinois  correlations between formant and survey values  Most speakers have mutually exclusive attitudes toward Southern Illinois (Region One) and Chicagoland (Region Two)  Positive association with one entails negative association with the other  This is not an artifact of survey design

Alignm nmen ent t toward Chicago goland land  Low / /  Backed / /  Lowered / /  No patterns have been found among front vowel variations

NCS-System ystem bms88540 540, , male, Tiger  Low / /  Backed / /  Lowered / / 180 a, bms88540-p a, SD c, bms88540-p c, SD  /u/ & /o/ e, bms88540-p e, SD eh, bms88540-p eh, SD 160 i, bms88540-p i, SD un-fronted ih, bms88540-p ih, SD o, bms88540-p o, SD Q, bms88540-p Q, SD  / /~/ / u, bms88540-p u, SD 140 uh, bms88540-p uh, SD v, bms88540-p v, SD merger S(F1)(w&f) 120 100 80

Alignm nmen ent t toward Southern ern Illinois ois  Raised (and/or not-lowered) / /  Lowered / /  Fronted /u/  Fronted / /  Fronted /o/  Again, except / /, no patterns have been found for front vowel variations

SS-System SS ystem dlk38605 605, , male, Wildcat at  Raised / /  Fronted /u/ 180  Fronted /o/ a, dlk38605-p a, SD c, dlk38605-p c, SD e, dlk38605-p e, SD  / /~/ / eh, dlk38605-p eh, SD 160 i, dlk38605-p i, SD ih, dlk38605-p ih, SD unmerged o, dlk38605-p o, SD Q, dlk38605-p Q, SD  / / raised u, dlk38605-p u, SD 140 uh, dlk38605-p uh, SD v, dlk38605-p v, SD S(F1)(w&f) 120 100 80

Motiva ivation tion  Movements typical of NCS indicate positive associations with Chicagoland  Movements typical of SS indicate positive associations with Southern Illinois  However…  Only back vowels show these strong correlations  Why?

Categorization Ca rization  NCS Features  SS Features 180 180 a, bms88540-p a, SD a, dlk38605-p a, SD c, bms88540-p c, SD c, dlk38605-p c, SD e, bms88540-p e, SD e, dlk38605-p e, SD eh, bms88540-p eh, SD eh, dlk38605-p eh, SD 160 160 i, bms88540-p i, SD i, dlk38605-p i, SD ih, bms88540-p ih, SD ih, dlk38605-p ih, SD o, bms88540-p o, SD o, dlk38605-p o, SD Q, bms88540-p Q, SD Q, dlk38605-p Q, SD 140 u, bms88540-p u, SD 140 u, dlk38605-p u, SD uh, bms88540-p uh, SD uh, dlk38605-p uh, SD v, bms88540-p v, SD v, dlk38605-p v, SD S(F1)(w&f) S(F1)(w&f) 120 120 100 100 80 80 Note that vowel variants of both NCS and SS types do not enter the “territory” of another vowel.

Proble lems ms and Further er Questio ions ns  MOTIVATION and CATEGORIZATION may have been partially explained, but what about ACCESS?  How can speakers without daily contact with a dialect can still be said to "have" or "use" these dialect features?  What about speakers with mixed or fudged „lects (Trudgill, 1986)?

Mixed-Syste System m B nwe57584 584, , male, Wildcat at  Backed / /  Unfronted /u/, /o/, / / 180 a, nw e37584-p a, SD  Raised / / c, nw e37584-p c, SD e, nw e37584-p e, SD eh, nw e37584-p eh, SD  / /~/ / 160 i, nw e37584-p i, SD ih, nw e37584-p ih, SD o, nw e37584-p o, SD unmerged Q, nw e37584-p Q, SD u, nw e37584-p u, SD 140 uh, nw e37584-p uh, SD v, nw e37584-p v, SD S(F1)(w&f) 120 100 80

Thank Yo You!  References  Arnett, Jeffery. (2000). Emerging adulthood : A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55 (5), 469-480.  Dakin, Robert F. (1966). The dialect vocabulary of the Ohio River Valley: A survey of the distribution of selected vocabulary forms in an area of complex settlement history (3 vols.). Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Frazer, Timothy. (1987). Midland Illinois dialect patterns . Publication of the American Dialect Society. PADS 73 . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.  Gándara, Patricia, Gutiérrez, Dianna, & O'Hara, Susan. (2001). Planning for the future in rural and urban high schools. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 6 (1/2), 73-93.  Labov, William. (1991). The three dialects of English. In Penelope Eckert (Ed.), New ways of analyzing sound change (pp. 1-44). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.  Trudgill, Peter. (1986). Dialects in contact . Oxford: Blackwell.  Watt, Dominic & Anne Fabricius. (2002). Evaluation of a technique for improving the mapping of multiple speakers' vowel spaces in the F1~ F2 plane. In D. Nelson (Ed.), Leeds working papers in linguistics and phonetics, 9 (pp. 159-173).