Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:26:21.963Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Solving the actuation problem: Merger and immigration in eastern Pennsylvania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

Ruth Herold
Ruth Herold
Affiliation:
Université Charles-de-Gaulle, Lille 3
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Data from fieldwork and a telephone survey is used to demonstrate that the merger of the vowels in words such as cot and caught, traditionally considered a defining characteristic of the speech of western Pennsylvania, is well established in the former anthracite mining towns of eastern Pennsylvania. Demographic and linguistic data indicate that the merger arose independently in the anthracite towns as a result of massive in-migration of speakers of Polish and other non-Germanic languages around the turn of the century. Having identified the proximate cause of the merger makes it possible to predict the presence or absence of the merger in various towns using demographic data alone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1997 , pp. 165 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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

Bailey, Guy, Wikle, Tom, Tillery, Jan, & Sand, Lori. (1994). The consequences of large-scale social processes for language change. Paper presented at NWAVE-XXIII, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. (1933). Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.Google Scholar
Golab, C. (1977). Immigrant destinations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. (1990). The sociolinguistic types of language change. Diachronica VII(1):47–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, John. (1985). Phonological variation and change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herold, Ruth. (1990). Mechanisms of merger: The implementation and distribution of the low back merger in eastern Pennsylvania. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Herzog, Marvin. (1965). The Yiddish language in northern Poland. IJAL 31(2), part 2.Google Scholar
Johnson, Lawrence. (1974). A sociolinguistic study of selected vowel changes in Los Angeles English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Karaska, Gerald. (1962). The pattern of settlements in the southern and middle anthracite regions of Pennsylvania. Doctoral dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans, & McDavid, Raven I. Jr. (1961). The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic states. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1974). Linguistic change as a form of communication. In Silverstein, A. (Ed.), Human communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 221–256.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1982). Building on empirical foundations. In Lehmann, W. & Malkiel, Y. (Eds.), Perspectives on historical linguistics. Amsterdam: Philadelphia: Benjamin. 17–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William (1987). The overestimation of functionalism. In Dirven, R. & Fried, V. (Eds.), Functionalism in linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 311–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William (1991). The three dialects of English. In Eckert, P. (Ed.), New ways of analyzing sound change. New York: Academic. 1–44.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Yaeger, Malcah, & Steiner, Richard. (1972). A quantitative study of sound change in progress. Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.Google Scholar
Lennig, Matthew. (1978). Acoustic measurements of linguistic change: The modern Paris vowel system. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
McDavid, Ravin I. Jr., & O'Cain, R. (Eds.). (1980–). Linguistic atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic states. Volume 1, Fascicle 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Milroy, John. (1992). Linguistic variation and change: On the historical sociolinguistics of English. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ohala, John. (1989). Sound change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation. In Breivik, L. & Jahr, E. (Eds.), Language change: Contributions to the study of its causes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 173–198.Google Scholar
Rand McNally commercial reference map and guide: Pennsylvania. (1983). Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Reed, C., & Seifert, L. (1954). A linguistic atlas of Pennsylvania German. Marburg/Lahn.Google Scholar
Rizza, P., Hughes, J., & Smith, A. (1975). Pennsylvania atlas: A thematic atlas of the Keystone State. Berlin, CT: Atlas Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Rose, D. (1981). Energy transition and the local community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tillery, Jan. (1989). The merger of the phonemes /o/ and /a/ in Texas: A study of sociological and phonetic constraints. Master's thesis, Texas A & M University.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1983). On dialect. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1989). Contact and isolation in linguistic change. In Breivik, L. & Jahr, E. (Eds.), Language change: Contributions to the study of its causes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 227–237.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter, & Foxcroft, Tina. (1978). On the sociolinguistics of vocalic mergers: Transfer and approximation in East Anglia. In Trudgill, P. (Ed.), Sociolinguistic patterns in British English. Baltimore: University Park.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wetmore, Thomas Jr. (1959). The low-central and low-back vowels in the English of the eastern United States. (Publications of the American Dialect Society 32.) Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Pennsylvania. (1940). Pennsylvania: A guide to the Keystone State. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar