Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:23:40.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Competing systems in Philadelphia phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2016

William Labov ,
Sabriya Fisher ,
Duna Gylfadottír ,
Anita Henderson  and
Betsy Sneller
William Labov
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Sabriya Fisher
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Duna Gylfadottír
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Anita Henderson
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Betsy Sneller
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This is a study of the competition of linguistic systems within the speech community, tracing the opposition of distinct phonological configurations. Among younger Philadelphians oriented to higher education, the traditional short-a system is giving way to the nasal system, in which all prenasal vowels are tense. We present evidence that this shift occurs systematically in both the lax and tense allophones. The degree of conformity to each system is measured for 106 subjects by the Pillai statistic; community-wide patterns are revealed by regression modeling and bimodality diagrams. Adherence to the traditional system is greatest for White speakers who graduated from Catholic high schools, while the nasal system is strongest for graduates from elite schools with special admission requirements. African American students show no orientation to the traditional system, but parallel White students in the shift to the nasal system. The histories of students through the educational system show that the speaker's short-a system is largely determined during their middle and high school years, before entering college. Special admission interviews play a special role in this process, as brief speech events that strongly determine the person's linguistic environment for the years that follow.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , October 2016 , pp. 273 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Banuazizi, Atissa, & Lipson, Miriam. (1998). The tensing of /ae/ before /l/: An anomalous case for short-a rules of white Philadelphia speech. In Paradis, C. et al. (eds.), Papers in Sociolinguistics: NWAVE-26 a l'Universite Laval. Montreal: Editions Nota Bene. 41–51.Google Scholar
Becker, Kara, & Wong, Amy. (2009). The short-a system of New York City English: An update. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 15(2):9–20.Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles, & Strassel, Stephanie M. (2000). Short-a in Cincinnati: A change in progress. Journal of English Linguistics 28:108–126.Google Scholar
Conn, Jeffrey C. (2005). Of “moice” and men: The evolution of male-led sound change. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron. (2011). Nasal short-a systems vs. the Northern Cities Shift. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 17(2):69–80.Google Scholar
Dodsworth, Robin. (2014). Network embeddedness and the reversal of Southern vowels in Raleigh, NC. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 20(2):39–50.Google Scholar
Durian, David. (2012). A new perspective on vowel variation across the 19th and 20th centuries in Columbus, OH. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Father Judge High School. (2016). Admissions process. Available at: http://www.fatherjudge.com/s/121/index.aspx?sid=121&gid=1&pgid=1733. Accessed September 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles A. (1975). ‘Short a' in Philadelphia English. In Smith, M. E. (ed.), Studies in linguistics in honor of George L. Trager. The Hague: Mouton. 259–274.Google Scholar
Fisher, Sabriya, Prichard, Hilary, & Sneller, Betsy. (2015). The apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Incremental change in Philadelphia families. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 21(2):47–57.Google Scholar
Fogle, Deena. (2008). Expansion or approximation: The low-back merger in Indianapolis. Paper given at NWAV 37, Houston, Texas, November 6–9.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lauren. (2014). The St. Louis corridor: mixing, competing, and retreating dialects. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Fruehwald, Josef. (2013). The phonological influence on phonetic change. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Gold, Eva, Evans, Shani Adia, Haxton, Clarisse, Maluk, Holly, Mitchell, Cecily, Simon, Elaine, & Good, Deborah. (2010). Transition to high school: School “choice” & freshman year in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Research for Action. (ERIC No. ED509014)Google Scholar
Hall-Lew, Lauren. (2010). Improved representation of variance in measures of vowel merger. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA) 9(1):1–10.Google Scholar
Hall-Lew, Lauren, Cardoso, Amanda, Kemenchedjieva, Yova, Wilson, Kieran, Purse, Ruaridh, & Saigusa, Julie. (2015). San Francisco English and the California Vowel Shift. Available at: https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2015/Papers/ICPHS0591.pdf. Accessed September 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Hartigan, J. A., & Hartigan, P. M.. (1985). The Dip test of unimodality. Annals of Statistics 13:70–84.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer, Warren, Paul, & Drager, Katie. (2006). Factors influencing speech perception in the context of a merger-in-progress. Journal of Phonetics 34:458–484.Google Scholar
Henderson, Anita. (1996). The short-a pattern of Philadelphia among African American speakers. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 3:127–140.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra. (1998). The tensing and laxing of short-a in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale College senior essay. Available at: http://www.danielezrajohnson.com/johnson_1998.pdf. Accessed September 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra (2015). Quantifying vowel overlap with Bhattacharyya's affinity. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 44, October 22–25.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra (2016). Rbrul. Available at: http://www.danielezrajohnson.com/rbrul.html. Accessed September 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. (1995). The phonological basis of sound change. In Goldsmith, J. (ed.), Handbook of generative phonology. Oxford: Blackwell. 1–31.Google Scholar
Kohn, Mary. (2016). (De)segregation: The impact of de facto and de jure segregation on African American English in the New South. In LAVIS IV Proceedings. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. (1989). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1:199–244.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. (1996). Dialect and style in the speech of upper class Philadelphia. In Guy, G., Feagin, C., Schiffrin, D., & Baugh, J. (eds.), Towards a social science of language. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 23–46.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1984). Field methods on the project of language change and variation. In Baugh, J. & Sherzer, J. (eds.), Language in use. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1989). The exact description of the speech community: Short a in Philadelphia. In Fasold, R. & Schiffrin, D. (eds.), Language change and variation. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1–57.Google Scholar
Labov, William (2001). Principles of linguistic change. Vol. 2: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, William (2014). The role of African Americans in Philadelphia sound change. Language Variation and Change 26:1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon, & Boberg, Charles. (2006). Atlas of North American English: Phonology and sound change. Berlin: Mouton/de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Labov, William, & Rosenfelder, Ingrid. (2013). The Philadelphia neighborhood corpus. Philadelphia: Linguistics Laboratory.Google Scholar
Labov, Willliam, Rosenfelder, Ingrid & Fruehwald, Josef. (2013). 100 years of sound change in Philadelphia: Linear incrementation, reversal and reanalysis. Language 89:30–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, Arvilla. (1976). The acquisition of the phonological system of a second dialect. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Prichard, Hilary. (2016). The role of higher education in linguistic change. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Prichard, Hilary, & Tamminga, Meredith. (2012). The impact of higher education on local phonology. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics: Selected Papers from NWAV 40. 18(2):86–95.Google Scholar
Roberts, Julie, & Labov, William. (1995). Learning to talk Philadelphian: Acquisition of short a by preschool children. Language Variation and Change 7:101–112.Google Scholar
Roeder, Rebecca. (2010). Northern Cities Mexican American English: Vowel production and perception. American Speech 85:165–184.Google Scholar
Roman Catholic High School. (2014). “Roman Catholic High School admissions process”. Available at: http://www.romancatholichs.com/cms/lib07/PA01923089/Centricity/Domain/121/rchs_admissions_process.pdf. Accessed September 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Rosenfelder, Ingrid, Fruehwald, Joseph, Evanini, Keelan, Seyfarth, Scott, Gorman, Kyle, Prichard, Hilary & Yuan, Jiahong. (2014). FAVE (Forced Alignment and Vowel Extraction) Program Suite v1.2.2. Available at: https://zenodo.org/record/22281#.V_0foJMrKXQ. Accessed September 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Sneller, Betsy. (2015). Individual conditioning factors and system knowledge contribute to evaluation of phonological systems. Paper presented at Penn Linguistics Conference 39, Philadelphia, March 20–22.Google Scholar
Sneller, Betsy (2016). Retention of two phonological subsystems in adult speakers. Paper presented at Berkeley Linguistic Society 42, Berkeley, February 5–7.Google Scholar
Trager, George L. (1934). What conditions limit variants of a phoneme? American Speech 9:313–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Suzanne Evans, Mason, Alex, Nesbitt, Monica, Pevan, Erin, & Savage, Matthew. (2015). Reversal and re-organization of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV 44), Toronto, Canada, October 22–25.Google Scholar