The Low Back Vowel Merger (LBVM) and Northern Cities Shift (NCS) are two phonological changes believed to be structurally antagonistic (Labov, 1994) due to mutual involvement of the bot and bought vowel classes. However, resistance to the LBVM is weakening in communities in Upstate New York (Dinkin, 2011), a long-standing NCS region (Labov et al., 2006). Moreover, northwestern Wisconsin, where differential /æ/-raising before voiced velars but not voiceless velars is also well established (Bauer & Parker, 2008; Purnell, 2008), exhibits both NCS and LBVM patterns in one community (Benson et al., 2011), ostensibly making this region a fringe NCS zone. Dinkin (2011) shows that backing of bot occurs in areas of New York with full Inland North NCS systems (core) and partial NCS systems (fringe) (Labov et al., 2006). He posits this as a consequence of proximity to established LBVM communities bringing about diffusion of merger, strongly suggesting that bot-fronting or even full-blown NCS is not sufficient to prevent the diffusion of the LBVM. Northwestern Wisconsin is another area in which the LBVM and NCS regions are geographically proximate (Labov et al., 2006, p. 182), making it well situated for the investigation of the relationship between the LBVM, NCS, and bag-raising.The internal progression of the NCS in the Inland North is associated with larger cities, such that the bigger they are the more advanced each stage of the change (Labov et al., 2006, pp. 187–215). More generally the gravity model (Trudgill, 1974) predicts that the LBVM and NCS will diffuse to larger cities first, followed by geographically contiguous suburban and rural communities. Taken together this leads to the following predictions: (1) both changes will be more advanced in the denser urban area relative to the others, and (2) bot-backing will occur due to LBVM proximity. However, whether or not bot-backing brings about retraction of other stages of the NCS in reverse sequence, or leads to a coexistence of NCS features with the LBVM is an open question.The vowel systems of 134 participants (75 Female, 59 Male, Birth year: 1929-1992) from three geographically contiguous cities in Northwestern Wisconsin (Urban, Rural, and Suburban) were measured from force-aligned (Yuan & Liberman, 2008) reading materials (Tokens=69,074). Lobanov (1971) normalized measurements were submitted to sets of mixed-effects regressions with speaker and task as nested random-intercepts, and a random-slope-by-speaker for log(duration).The LBVM is making inroads into the region, with substantial phonetic overlap starting in the 1980s. While it appears that bet and bought are stable across apparent-time, with bet often backer than bad, the first two stages of the NCS are found to be reversing with bot backing and bad lowering and backing, across apparent-time. A city*year of birth interaction shows the second largest city reversing bad fastest. bot is reversing in all communities, ending up in the same phonetic space, but each community had reached a different level of fronting before LBVM diffusion brought about reversal. Lastly, the different communities show different trajectories of change for both bag and ban.

We report initial findings from a study of the Northern Cities Shift (NCS) in Lansing, Michigan. As in other urban centers recently examined, the NCS appears to be undergoing re-evaluation and attrition. However, whereas others have found the NCS to be simply undergoing "exact reversals" of its vowel movements (Driscoll and Lape 2014), in Lansing we find two additional processes in addition to reversal: reorganization and continuation. We observe reversal of the fronting of LOT, reorganization of TRAP from a raised to a continuous or nasal system, and continuation of the lowering of DRESS. Findings are derived from a sample of 50 speakers born 1908 to 1996, combining new sociolinguistic interviews with oral histories recorded 1992-2006.

Dialectologia Revista Electronica, 2010

In contrast with the traditional dialect atlas, the glottogram simultaneously displays geographical differences and age differences in language usage. 1 There are two techniques for ascertaining the absolute chronology of linguistic change: real time and apparent time techniques. The typical technique for the apparent time is the comparison of two dialect maps of different age groups. There is another technique for considering geographical and age differences at the same time. This technique, called the "glottogram", has the merit of offering clues for the speed of diffusion. In this paper, several examples of dialect maps and glottograms showing speed of diffusion will be observed. The speed of diffusion within one community may be somewhat more than three generations or around 100 years. In the same period of one century, the changes typically proceed 100 km from the community.

2015

Recent studies at the University of Washington as part of the Pacific Northwest English (PNWE) Study have found that Washingtonians are raising /ae, E/ before /g/ (e.g. "bag", "beg"), known as 'pre-velar raising' (Wassink, 2014, 2015b; Wassink, Squizzero, Schirra, & Conn, 2009), and lowering /e/ before /g/ (e.g. "vague") (Freeman, 2014b; Riebold, 2014a). However, there is much still to be understood about the social and geographical distribution of these changes. This dissertation is a sociophonetic study of the character and spread of this change in the speech of 71 Washingtonians from five ethnic groups known to have a long history in the state: African Americans, Caucasians, Japanese Americans, Mexican Americans, and the Yakama Nation. First, the overall vowel space of Northwest English is situated in the landscape of US dialects, and the ethnicities are compared in order to investigate crossethnic differences. Following this, results from the pre-velar analysis are presented in which traditional vowel plots (F1 x F2) are used to locate each ethnicity's front vowels, while threedimensional overlap (F1 x F2 x duration) (VOIS3D; Wassink, 2006) is used to assess the extent of raising and the contribution of duration in maintaining or erasing contrast. SS-ANOVA (Gu, 2002) plots are used to model vowel trajectories as curves connecting onset,

2011

Few studies have examined the vowel systems of communities that border areas characterized by the Northern Cities Shift and the low back vowel merger, two sound changes currently shaping North American English. Using data from 40 respondents in greater Eau Claire, in northwestern Wisconsin, we examine the behavior of the low vowels /æ, ɑ, ɔ/ and consider the relationships among their arrangements and these sound changes. We find advanced /æ/-raising before /g/, moderate /æ/-raising in other environments, little to no /ɑ/-fronting, and the low back vowel merger in progress. The findings challenge the assumption that /æ/-raising and the low back vowel merger are unlikely to co-occur. In addition, the patterns of /æ/-raising, for example, that /æ/-raising before /g/ is not undergoing change and /æ/-raising in other environments may be receding, raise interesting questions about the relationship between /æ/-raising in northwestern Wisconsin and the Northern Cities Shift. Although /æ/- raising seems to precede the low back vowel merger in northwestern Wisconsin, the pressure of the low back vowel merger is intensifying due to geographic and social connections between northwestern Wisconsin and Minnesota.

University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 1996

WORKING …, 1997

Variation in vowel height and diphthongal/monophthongal character of the vowels /re/ and /a/ are studied in the speech of two speakers from central Ohio in order to measure their participation in the sequence of vowel system changes commonly referred to as the Northern Cities Shift (Labov, 1994). The data were gathered from radio shows for which the speakers served as announcers. Determinations of vowel height and diphthongal nature of vowels were made by auditory judgment. o(the researchers and were correlated with acoustic measurements of F 1 and F2 frequencies. The results suggest that the vowel system of the centrai Ohio dialect is undergoing change, but.are inconclusive as to whether this change indicates participation in the Northern Cities Shift. Detailed analyses of social and linguistic factors correlated with the tensing and raising of /re/ are offered. •

English Today, 2023

University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 2001

Journal of Linguistic Geography, 2014

This paper demonstrates how the tools of dialect geography may fruitfully lend a new perspective to historical data in order to address the lingering questions left by previous analyses. A geographic examination of Survey of English Dialects data provides evidence in favor of a push-chain analysis of the Great Vowel Shift, in which the Middle English high-mid long vowels raised before the high long vowels were diphthongized. It is also demonstrated that the so-called “irregular” dialect outcomes, which have previously been cited as evidence for a lack of unity of the Great Vowel Shift, are no longer problematic when viewed in the light of a theory of dialect contact, and can in fact refine our understanding of the chronology and geographic extent of the shift itself.

Publication of the American Dialect Society, 2016

The present analysis builds on previous evidence for the California Vowel Shift in San Francisco English (Hall-Lew 2009, 2013) with data on the lowering and retraction of BET (Kennedy & Grama 2012) and the BAT nasal split (Eckert 2008). Based on interview speech from a socially stratified sample of 22 San Franciscans, women lead men in the retraction changes, and European Americans lead Chinese Americans in both BAT retraction and BAN raising. We also find the first evidence for gender-differentiated change in BAN raising when the nasal is velar. Furthermore, preliminary data suggest a pre-velar effect for BET and BAT, which is best described as inhibition of retraction and lowering, not the raising movement of Pacific Northwest varieties (Becker et al. current volume, Wassink current volume). Overall, San Francisco English exhibits precisely the Northern Californian vowel system expected, rather than being an exceptional dialect island (cf. Labov et al. 2006). 1 The automatic align ment and extraction of vowel data is only possible due to long hours of initial orthographic transcription. Our thanks go to research funds from the 2009-2010 Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship which funded transcription by RAs Cla ire Drohan, Annabel Schwenk, and Amanda Wall, as well as to the 2010-2011 PPLS Pilot Scheme wh ich funded transcription by RAs Keelin Murray and the first author. A special note of thanks goes to RAs Julie Saigusa and Kieran Wilson, who, along with the authors of this paper, volunteered their time to pro ject transcription during 2014-2015. We also thank Josef Fruehwald and the editors and other contributors to this collection for the conversations that made this paper possible. Lastly, the biggest debt goes to those speakers whose voices are represented here. All shortcomings are our own.

AI

A Reader in Sociophonetics, 2010

2005

The present sociophonetic study examines the English variety in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) based upon a 130-speaker sample from Marquette County. The linguistic variables of interest include seven monophthongs and four diphthongs: 1) front lax, 2) low back, and 3) high back monophthongs and 4) short and 5) long diphthongs. The sample is stratified by the predictor variables of heritage-location, bilingualism, age, sex and class. The aim of the thesis is two fold: 1) to determine the extent of potential substrate effects on a 71-speaker older-aged bilingual and monolingual subset of these UP English speakers focusing on the predictor variables of heritage-location and bilingualism, and 2) to determine the extent of potential exogenous influences on an 85-speaker subset of UP English monolingual speakers by focusing on the predictor variables of heritage-location, age, sex and class. All data were extracted from a reading passage task collected during a sociolinguistic interview and measured instrumentally. The findings of this apparent-time data reveal the presence of lingering effects from substrate sources and developing effects from exogenous sources based upon American and Canadian models of diffusion. The linguistic changes-in-progress from above, led by middle-class females, are taking shape in the speech of UP residents of whom are propagating linguistic phenomena typically associated with varieties of Canadian English (i.e., low-back merger, Canadian shift, and Canadian raising); however, the findings also report resistance of such norms by working-class females. Finally, the data also reveal substrate effects demonstrating cases of dialect leveling and maintenance. As a result, the speech spoken in Michigan's Upper Peninsula can presently be described as a unique variety of English comprised of lingering substrate effects as well as exogenous effects modeled from both American and Canadian English linguistic norms.

2014

"Traditional eastern New England (ENE) dialect features are rapidly receding in many parts of northern New England. Because this ENE shift involves seven different phonological features, it provides a prime opportunity to explore different rates of change across multiple linguistic variables at the same time in the same social setting. The present study is the first acoustic sociophonetic investigation of central New Hampshire, and it is based on new field data from 51 adult speakers. Results show that young generations are discarding many traditional ENE pronunciations in favor of leveled, nonregional forms, yet the changes are affecting some variables more quickly than others. Many distinctive traditional ENE variants (nonrhotic speech, intrusive-r, fronted FATHER, “broad-a” in BATH) are quickly receding, while others (fronted START and HOARSE/HORSE distinction) are somewhat more conservative, being “overshadowed” by the presence of (r) as a variable within the same syllable. We frame our apparent-time analysis in terms of Sankoff’s (2013a) notion of “age vectors” and Labov’s (2012) “outward orientation” of the language faculty, illustrating how different generations are juggling multiple age vectors within the same overall shift, and how one variable can overshadow another variable within the same syllable."

Previous studies of border regions have characterized linguistic divergence as a natural consequence of the social psychological and cognitive processes speakers apply in constructing their conceptualizations of the border and those on the other side (Auer 2005). For the border shared by Canada and the United States, in particular, Boberg (2000) highlights a resistance to the diffusion of sound change across the national border. While providing some valid descriptions, these assessments neglect the multi-faceted social function of language to both unite and distinguish speakers and social groups. They also ignore the potentially important role of cultural affinity and regional solidarity spanning a national border. As Irvine & Gal (2000) explain, ideological processes that serve to project contrasts occur recursively and simultaneously with processes that ideologically erase other contrasts at different levels of the system. These ideological processes have consequences for linguistic structure and for sound change. With its strong regional solidarity spanning the U.S.-Canadian border and lack of previous trans-border comparisons in the region, the Pacific Northwest is an ideal site to examine the effects of these ideological processes. Despite the geographic proximity and cultural similarities of Vancouver, B.C. and Seattle, WA, few studies have directly compared their speech (see Sadlier-Brown 2012 for one exception). The Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash, & Boberg 2006) describes the difficulty of differentiating “the West” as a dialect region from “Canada” and concludes that this must be done on the basis of their degrees of participation in similar sound changes. The ANAE relies on single time-point measurements for vowels, however, and does not examine variation in dynamic formant trajectories across the dialects, though these have been shown to differentiate dialects and ethnolects in previous work (Janson & Schulman 1983, DeDecker & Nycz 2006, Fox & Jacewicz 2009, Jacewicz & Fox 2012, Scanlon & Wassink 2010, Koops 2010, Risdal & Kohn 2014). Prior research in B.C. has focused on the region’s participation in features of the Canadian Shift such as /æ/ retraction and its questionable participation in raising of /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ (Chambers 1973, Esling & Warkentyne 1993, Hall 2000, Sadlier-Brown & Tamminga 2008, Boberg 2008, Pappas & Jeffrey 2014). These studies of Vancouver vowels have relied on single-point measurements. In Seattle, on the other hand, research primarily documents pre-velar raising of /æ/ before /g/ (Wassink 2009, Freeman 2013, Riebold 2012, 2014 and 2015). No large-scale studies have compared these features between Vancouver and Seattle speakers using dynamic methods. With 29,372 audio-recorded vowel tokens collected via a word list reading task from a gender and age-balanced sample of 20 Seattle and 19 Vancouver speakers, the current study provides a variationist sociophonetic analysis of speakers’ participation in five diagnostic dialectal features of Seattle English and Vancouver English: pre-velar /æ/ raising, pre-nasal /æ/ raising, /æ/ retraction, and the “Canadian” raising of diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/. Measurements for the current study were extracted at five duration-proportional points and comparisons of formant trajectories were included in the mixed-effects linear regression models for each diagnostic dialect feature. In addition, sociocultural interviews were conducted with each participant to better understand the speakers’ orientations toward their regional and national identity as well as the cultural and linguistic ideologies they embraced. The study also considers variation between two emically-defined age groups of young adult speakers. The results suggest that Seattle and Vancouver speakers are participating in some of the same allophonic processes, like /æg/ raising, but they are also differentiated by other processes including /æn/ raising, /æ/ retraction, /aʊ/ raising, /aɪ/ raising. In these cases, the distinction between Seattle and Vancouver relates to the degree to which a phonetic process has been phonologized, and this distinction can most accurately be captured in the phonetic form of the feature using dynamic analyses. Seattle and Vancouver speakers are also found to embrace asymmetrical language ideologies, and these act as a predictor of their linguistic behavior for features undergoing sound change. In addition, variation between the two emically-defined age groups highlights the differential use of sociolinguistic resources by speakers within the same broader age group of "adult" speakers. This research sheds light on the relationship between phonetic form, sound change and socio-indexical meaning. It also documents the variation within a less studied dialect region divided by a national border and offers a realistically complex view of the simultaneous solidarity and differentiation of identity embodied by its inhabitants.

San Francisco English has been previously identified as distinct from Californian English, based on its maintenance of a low back vowel distinction. Subsequent work has shown participation in the low back merger and other Californian sound changes. We present an analysis of the front and central vowels involved in the California Vowel Shift: KIT, DRESS, TRAP, and STRUT. Previous work in San Francisco found raised DRESS after velars, and raised KIT, DRESS, and TRAP before nasals. Elsewhere in California, KIT and DRESS are lowering; TRAP is raising before nasals and backing before orals (‘the nasal split’). We examine vowels produced in read speech by 24 speakers stratified by age, gender, and ethnicity. Results show apparent time evidence of DRESS lowering/backing and the TRAP ‘nasal split’. Effects of style and gender raise further questions. The results point to San Francisco English converging on broader regional patterns.

A capstone project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts English Raleigh 2013 APPROVED BY: _____________________________ ________________________ Advisor Director of Graduate Programs In submitting this capstone project, I understand that my abstract will be posted in the M.A. program's online public archive and that the full text will be stored electronically in a departmental archive. _____________________________ ________________________ Student Signature Date ABSTRACT JON ROBERT FORREST, JR. The Times They Are A-Changin': (ING) Variation and Dialect Leveling in Raleigh, NC. (Under the direction of Professor Robin Dodsworth.) (IN)/(ING) alternation is the prototypical "stable" phonetic variable in English. Rather than moving toward completion, it shows consistent internal and social factors. While it is normally shown not to be changing over time, the loss of other Southern linguistic features in Raleigh suggests that this feature may be undergoing change as well.

Language Variation and Change, 2008

This study contributes to innovation and diffusion models by examining phonetic changes in London English. It evaluates Sapir's notion of “drift,” which involves “natural,” unconscious change, in relation to these changes. Investigating parallel developments in two related varieties of English enables drift to be tested in terms of the effect of extralinguistic factors. The diphthongs of price, mouth, face, and goat in both London and New Zealand English are characterized by “Diphthong Shift,” a process that continued unabated in New Zealand. A new, large data set of London speech shows Diphthong Shift reversal, providing counterevidence for drift. We discuss Diphthong Shift and its “reversal” in relation to innovation, diffusion, leveling, and supralocalization, arguing that sociolinguistic factors and dialect contact override natural Diphthong Shift. Studying dialect change in a metropolis, with its large and linguistically innovative minority ethnic population, is of the utmost importance in understanding the dynamics of change.

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