Where education and salience meet, local dialects retreat Hilary Prichard Robin Dodsworth University of Pennsylvania North Carolina State University NWAV 42 - October 2013

Interaction of education & salience Prichard and Tamminga (2012) introduced a novel 4-level education index No higher education (high school or less) Local, community college, often 2-year degree Regional, 4-year college, draws students from across region National, prestigious, geographically diverse student body Hypothesized that education interacts with social salience in a gradient fashion National university educated speakers lead retreat from salient local features NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth2/26

Testing the interaction We test this hypothesis in two locations: Philadelphia, PA reversal of socially-salient dialect features no evidence of influence of large-scale dialect contact Raleigh, NC leveling of SVS features following dialect contact large-scale migration of Northerners begins in 1960s NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth3/26

Philadelphia, PA Reversal of: /æh/ BAD /oh/ THOUGHT /aw/ MOUTH Ongoing change in: /eyC/ FACE /ay0/ PRICE BAD represents tense class of Philadelphia split short-a system THOUGHT is especially tense and raised in Philadelphia MOUTH is raised and fronted FACE is raised and fronted in checked position PRICE is raised before voiceless consonants Labov et al document: NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth4/26

Philadelphia vowel salience Three vowels undergoing reversal are also salient 1970s LCV studies showed “moderate degree of awareness” for raised MOUTH but not PRICE Labov et al identify tense BAD and THOUGHT as local stereotypes As of yet no evidence of social awareness of FACE raising NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth5/26

Philadelphia sound changes Ed D., male born 1889, high school education Spaz A., male born 1992, high school education NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth6/26

Philadelphia Data Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus (Labov et al. 2013) 201 speakers born between 1889 and : No higher education 23: Local college (e.g., Phila. Community College) 27: Regional college(e.g., Drexel University) 17: National college(e.g., University of Pennsylvania) NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth7/26

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Changes in progress NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth9/26

Reversal of change NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth10/26

Reversal of change NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth11/26

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Philadelphia Statistics Fit a mixed effects model for each vowel variable Fixed effects of DOB, Education, Sex By-speaker and by-word random intercepts Education is significant main effect for: BAD all comparisons sig. except local vs. high school THOUGHTall comparisons sig. except local vs. high school MOUTHnational vs. regional *, local ***, high school *** vs. FACEno significant differences PRICEnational vs. local *, high school ** NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth13/26

Philadelphia Education groups are well-differentiated for the three salient vowels, BAD, MOUTH, and THOUGHT Modeling shows that local, regional, and national groups are statistically different but HS and local are not NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth14/26

Raleigh, NC: Southern Vowel Shift NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth FLEECE KIT FACE DRESS TRAP 15/26

Raleigh, NC Dodsworth & Kohn (2012) find reversal of the SVS Second stage of SVS demonstrated to be salient & negatively-stereotyped in Memphis (Fridland et al. 2004) NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth16/26

Raleigh Data Raleigh Corpus (Dodsworth & Kohn 2012) 122 speakers born between 1923 and : No higher education 13: Local college (e.g., Wake Tech) 60: Regional college (e.g., NC State, UNC-Greensboro) 29: National college (e.g., Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill) NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth17/26

Change over time in the Raleigh front vowel system NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth18/26

Raleigh: FLEECE & KIT reversal NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth19/26

Raleigh: FACE & DRESS reversal NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth20/26

Raleigh: TRAP retraction NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth21/26

Raleigh changes by education group NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth22/26

Raleigh Statistics Fixed effects of preceding & following place, DOB, education, duration By-speaker random intercepts, by-duration random slopes Education is significant only in the model for FACE national vs. local ** regional vs. local marginal (p=.06) NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth23/26

Discussion In Philadelphia we saw: Strong reversal of BAD, THOUGHT, MOUTH led by national group Continuing change in FACE, PRICE Whereas in Raleigh: All features have some degree of salience Education groups are not well differentiated But lack the clear lock-step pattern seen in Philadelphia changes from below NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth24/26

Conclusions Initial hypothesis is borne out: The effect of college education is not uniform National university speakers show greatest retreat from salient local features NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth25/26

Thank You! References Dodsworth, Robin, and Mary Kohn Urban rejection of the vernacular: The SVS undone. Language Variation and Change 24:221–245. Fridland, Valerie, Kathryn Bartlett, and Roger Kreuz Do you hear what I hear? Experimental measurement of the perceptual salience of acoustically manipulated vowel variants by Southern speakers in Memphis, TN. Language Variation and Change 16:1–16. Labov, William Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. Labov, William, Ingrid Rosenfelder, and Josef Fruehwald One hundred years of sound change in Philadelphia: linear incrementation, reversal and re- analysis. Language 89:30–65. Prichard, Hilary, and Meredith Tamminga The impact of higher education on Philadelphia vowels. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 18.2:87–95. NWAV 42Prichard & Dodsworth26/26