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

• is (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

• is

Re Researc rch h Qu Question

• ns
• 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

• ds:

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

• ds:

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

• ds:

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

• ds:

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
• f categories that speakers “work

around”.

60 80 100 120 140 160 180 F1norm v-sd v-mean uh-sd uh-mean u-sd u-mean Q-sd Q-mean

• -sd
• -mean

ih-sd ih-mean i-sd i-mean eh-sd eh-mean e-sd e-mean c-sd c-mean a-sd a-mean

SoIL-Stand tandar ard Vowel l Space gsb36129, 129, male, , Wildcat dcat

• / /~/ /

merged & low

• /o/ back
• /u/ & / /

central

• / / low

80 100 120 140 160 180 S(F1)(w&f) v, SD v, gsb36129-p uh, SD uh, gsb36129-p u, SD u, gsb36129-p Q, SD Q, gsb36129-p

• , SD
• , gsb36129-p

ih, SD ih, gsb36129-p i, SD i, gsb36129-p eh, SD eh, gsb36129-p e, SD e, gsb36129-p c, SD c, gsb36129-p a, SD a, gsb36129-p

60 80 100 120 140 160 180 F1norm v uh u Q

• ih

i eh e c a

• 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

• is 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 / /
• /u/ & /o/

un-fronted

• / /~/ /

merger

80 100 120 140 160 180 S(F1)(w&f) v, SD v, bms88540-p uh, SD uh, bms88540-p u, SD u, bms88540-p Q, SD Q, bms88540-p

• , SD
• , bms88540-p

ih, SD ih, bms88540-p i, SD i, bms88540-p eh, SD eh, bms88540-p e, SD e, bms88540-p c, SD c, bms88540-p a, SD a, bms88540-p

Alignm nmen ent t toward Southern ern Illinois

• is
• Raised (and/or not-lowered) / /
• Lowered / /
• Fronted /u/
• Fronted / /
• Fronted /o/
• Again, except / /, no patterns have been

found for front vowel variations

SS SS-System ystem dlk38605 605, , male, Wildcat at

• Raised / /
• Fronted /u/
• Fronted /o/
• / /~/ /

unmerged

• / / raised

80 100 120 140 160 180 S(F1)(w&f) v, SD v, dlk38605-p uh, SD uh, dlk38605-p u, SD u, dlk38605-p Q, SD Q, dlk38605-p

• , SD
• , dlk38605-p

ih, SD ih, dlk38605-p i, SD i, dlk38605-p eh, SD eh, dlk38605-p e, SD e, dlk38605-p c, SD c, dlk38605-p a, SD a, dlk38605-p

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?

Ca Categorization rization

• NCS Features
• SS Features

• , SD
• , dlk38605-p

Note that vowel variants of both NCS and SS types do not enter the “territory” of another vowel.

• , SD
• , bms88540-p

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/, / /

• Raised / /
• / /~/ /

unmerged

80 100 120 140 160 180 S(F1)(w&f) v, SD v, nw e37584-p uh, SD uh, nw e37584-p u, SD u, nw e37584-p Q, SD Q, nw e37584-p

• , SD
• , nw e37584-p

ih, SD ih, nw e37584-p i, SD i, nw e37584-p eh, SD eh, nw e37584-p e, SD e, nw e37584-p c, SD c, nw e37584-p a, SD a, nw e37584-p

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
• f multiple speakers' vowel spaces in the F1~ F2 plane. In D. Nelson (Ed.), Leeds

working papers in linguistics and phonetics, 9 (pp. 159-173).