1 Today: Accents and Dialects of US English This hour: What is a dialect? An accent? What contributes to a listener's perception of accented speech? From lexical to phonological atlases: American dialectology What phonological differences may be observed between dialects of US English? Key term: Isogloss: a graphical representation marking the distributional limits of lexical items or linguistic forms (sometimes the area associated with a linguistic form)

2 What is a dialect?…an accent? Dialect-- a local form of "a language”; often associated with a particular region (regional dialect) or subsection of a larger language community (sociolect). --regionally or socially distinctive -- vary in relatively minor aspects of their pronunciation (“accent”), vocabulary and grammar (how words are combined into sentences) … Similar techniques for diagnosing dialects may be used for all languages

3 American Regional Dialects How many dialects are there, and Why do dialect differences arise? Why is it that people in all parts of the country do not speak in the same way? 1. English, as is true of all languages, is constantly changing. 2. Not all changes take place in all parts of the country, and 3. Not all changes take place at the same time. Often, the spread of changes is stopped short by barriers to communication between groups of speakers. 1. Geographical isolation 2. Temporal dislocation (separation over time) 3. Social isolation

4 Types of Groups into which Society is Organized: Large-scale groupings: 1. Regional dialects 2. Social dialects, or “Sociolects” -- social classes-- educational groupings -- genders-- ethnicities -- age cohorts Small-scale groupings: 3. Social networks, e.g. -- immigrant communities -- neighborhoods and recreation groups

5 Traditional Dialectology Aims: 1.Provide a historical record of the language 2.Show areal distribution of unique linguistic features 3.Not concerned with representing the speech of the community

6 Traditional Dialectology Method: 1.Administer a dialect survey targeting specific lexical items, pronunciations (diagnostic forms) 2.Collect data from representative community members, called NORMs 3.Typically, sampling was done by relying on population density Lines indicating the distributional limits of lexical items or linguistic forms are called isoglosses. Focus: 1.Lexical 2.Grammatical 3.Phonological Two recent subfields of sociolinguistics in which dialect descriptions are now accomplished: Sociophonetics -- Instrumental phonetics supplements auditory phonetic and phonological analysis Urban Dialectology -- Utilizes updated lexical-cartographic methods (TELSUR)

7 Traditional Dialectology “Cartographic” dialectology LAMSAS software: Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS) Linguistic Atlas of New England (LANE) Kurath and McDavid (1961) The Pronunciation of English in the United States

8 Traditional Dialectology Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) Cassidy, F.G. (1985:xxix), fig. 7)

9 Where are they from? u U I ´A i o

10 Map of US Dialects Susie Margaret Karen Lisa Michele Nancy Peggy

11 Diagnosing Dialect Differences Phonological differences. For the most part, the features that distinguish us from people in other parts of the country are our vowels! -- Vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ai, oi, ei, au) -- Consonants (r, t, d, th)

12 Diagnosing Dialect Differences

13 Northern Cities and Southern Cities Vowel Shifts (Labov, 1991) i˘ e˘ I E Q a ç √ o˘ U u˘ key characteristics: fronting of (a), tensing and raising of (ae), backing of short (e,i), lowering of (oh) in W New England, N PA, N OH, IN, IL, MI, WI (Buffalo, Chicago) traditionally tense (long) vowels and / U / are unaffected lax subsystem is moving ordering of elements via “push” and “drag” chains somewhat controversial (iy) beat (i) bit (ey) beat (e) bet (ae) bat (o) bottle, father (uw) boot (u) book (ow) boat (uh) but (oh) ball, caught

14 Northern Cities and Southern Cities Vowel Shifts (Labov, 1991) i˘ e˘ I E Q a ç √ o˘ U u˘ key characteristics: fronting of long back vowels (uw), (ow), upward rotation and development of inglides in short (e,i) while long (ey,iy) rotate back and downward in all of the US South both shifts are viewed as related (and separate from a third pattern, associated with the merger of (oh-a) ). (iy) beat (i) bit (ey) beat (e) bet (ae) bat (o) bottle, father (uw) boot (u) book (ow) boat (uh) but (oh) ball, caught

15 In the recent news... Detroit vowels: New Orleans: Dislocated family resettling in Seattle: “other” (th)-stopping “crying” (ay) “chicken,” “fish” short-(i) Buffalo (Donald Herbert story): “Don” (a)-fronting “father”(a)-fronting

16 Where are they from?

17 Traditional Sociolinguistics Aims: 1.Represent the language of the speech community -- traditional and innovative forms -- variation between and within speakers 2. Provide a historical record of the language --direct observation of change in the speech community 3. Understand the social mechanisms that enable variation and change in the speech of the community 4. Understand the manner in which speakers use variation in the language for signaling a wide variety of social meanings (Blom and Gumperz)

18 The new attention to phonology: Representing Dialect Speech Method: 1. International phonetic alphabet (IPA): Traditional dialectology 2. Auditory analysis: Traditional dialectology and Sociolinguistics 3. Instrumental analysis : Sociophonetics

19 Representing Dialect Speech Method: 1.International Phonetic Alphabet 1. Low-central /a/ (non-centralized)4. / å / 2. Raised /a/: / a£ /5. Raised / å /: / å¢ / 3. Lowered / å / : / å¢ /6. and finally, schwa: / ´ / 2.R-colored vowels “purr” / p‘ / “heard” / h‘d / “sir” / s‘ /