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2 results

  • Chapter 8 - Internal Push, External Pull: The Reverse Short Front Vowel Shift in South African English

  • from II - Sociolinguistics, Globalisation and Multilingualism
  • Edited by Raymond Hickey, Universität Duisburg–Essen
  • Book:
    English in Multilingual South Africa
    Published online:
    07 November 2019
    Print publication:
    21 November 2019, pp 151-175

  • Summary

    This chapter outlines the recent development of short front vowel lowering in South African English as it is used in Cape Town by white speakers. Using the latest acoustic and statistical methods, the chapter shows how the KIT, DRESS and TRAP vowels are lowering and retracting in the speech of young speakers when compared to older speakers. The change that has had the most profound influence on the Reverse Vowel Shift is the extreme lowering and retraction of TRAP, which causes the lowering of DRESS in a pull chain. The FOOT vowel is well established as a centralised vowel which, because of its unrounded nature in South African English, overlaps with certain retracted KIT allophones. This can be seen as the impetus for the lowering of KIT as evidenced in the chapter. The Reverse Vowel Shift is an externally motivated, prestige-driven change due to the virtual contact with particularly American Englishes.