- 121a ECS Kansas State University
Mary Kohn
Kansas State University, English Dept, Faculty Member
- Sociophonetics, Dialects of English, Individual Differences, Language Variation and Change, Phonology, English, and 11 moreLinguistics, Language Variation, Language Change, Perceptual Dialectology, African American Vernacular English, Sociolinguistics, History of English Language, Dialectology, Pedagogical English Grammar, Language and Identity, and English language and linguisticsedit
- Find more about my research, including conference presentations and current projects, at www.maryekohn.com I am a so... moreFind more about my research, including conference presentations and current projects, at www.maryekohn.com
I am a sociolinguist with an interest in language variation and change. I currently work on several research endeavors including the Kansas Speaks Project and the Frank Porter Graham Project. Through my research I hope to create a better understanding of how children's accents change during the school years, and how cultural geographic factors interface with trajectories of language change. The broad goal of this type of research is to provide insight into the intersection of language and society in order to understand how and why language changes over time. A more immediate goal for such research is to increase understanding of language diversity, which will hopefully assist educators, speech pathologists, and test designers in creating equitable learning environments, interventions, and assessment tools.edit
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Representativeness in regional dialectology is critical to avoid essentialization when describing regional and ethnic language variation. Yet, regional vowel studies still tend to focus on majority-white communities. Additionally, lack of... more
Representativeness in regional dialectology is critical to avoid essentialization when describing regional and ethnic language variation. Yet, regional vowel studies still tend to focus on majority-white communities. Additionally, lack of research on the Great Plains leaves research on regional variation in Latinx Englishes incomplete. We examine a majority-Latinx community in a dialect region where the Low Back Vowel Merger Shift (LBMS) is widespread to examine participation in this sound shift and to document Latinx variation in the Great Plains. Findings illustrate the widespread presence of the LBMS for all participants, but with a less pronounced prenasal trap/ban split. The latter represents a vocalic pattern attested in numerous US Latinx communities. Anglos from the majority-Latinx field site variably pattern with their Latinx peers in their production of ban. These patterns illustrate participation in regional sound changes while also documenting supra-regional variation and local participation in Latinx English variants by Anglo peers.
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Representativeness in regional dialectology is critical to avoid essentialization when describing regional and ethnic language variation. Yet, regional vowel studies still tend to focus on majority-white communities. Additionally, lack of... more
Representativeness in regional dialectology is critical to avoid essentialization when describing regional and ethnic language variation. Yet, regional vowel studies still tend to focus on majority-white communities. Additionally, lack of research on the Great Plains leaves research on regional variation in Latinx Englishes incomplete. We examine a majority-Latinx community in a dialect region where the Low Back Vowel Merger Shift (LBMS) is widespread to examine participation in this sound shift and to document Latinx variation in the Great Plains. Findings illustrate the widespread presence of the LBMS for all participants, but with a less pronounced prenasal trap/ban split. The latter represents a vocalic pattern attested in numerous US Latinx communities. Anglos from the majority-Latinx field site variably pattern with their Latinx peers in their production of ban. These patterns illustrate participation in regional sound changes while also documenting supra-regional variation an...
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This talk presents research on the role of segregation in perpetuating language differences in the United States. Evidence from a 20-year longitudinal study demonstrates that participation in so-called Mainstream American English... more
This talk presents research on the role of segregation in perpetuating language differences in the United States. Evidence from a 20-year longitudinal study demonstrates that participation in so-called Mainstream American English correlates with access to majority-white schools and neighborhoods. Given the extensive research on linguistic discrimination, I will facilitate a discussion on how linguistic differences must be considered when creating environments for civic discourse
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While the retraction of TRAP is found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016), it is associated with California and supposed Californian values in both the popular media (Pratt and D’Onofrio 2017) and the ears of Californian... more
While the retraction of TRAP is found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016), it is associated with California and supposed Californian values in both the popular media (Pratt and D’Onofrio 2017) and the ears of Californian listeners (Villarreal 2018). This study investigates the local construction of meaning for a supra-local sound change by examining perceptions of TRAP backing in Kansas, a locale that has undergone front lax vowel retraction (Kohn and Stithem 2015). Thirty-five college students heard matched-guise stimuli differing only by TRAP F2, guessed speakers’ regional origin, and rated speakers on 14 affective scales. Listeners associated TRAP backing with California (despite local participation in the sound shift) and general prestige. We suggest that that this association with general prestige may help to explain the presence of this vowel shift in Kansas despite considerable ideological differences with California. We argue that these results highlight the ...
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This chapter considers dialect formation in emerging Latino communities in North Carolina. In the last twenty-five years, historical patterns of migration and settlement have dramatically changed through the introduction of new... more
This chapter considers dialect formation in emerging Latino communities in North Carolina. In the last twenty-five years, historical patterns of migration and settlement have dramatically changed through the introduction of new destinations for Latino immigrants. These emerging contact scenarios provide linguists with the opportunity to observe how ethnolects develop and adapt in new linguistic contexts. This chapter compares emerging phonological and phonetic variation among two Latino new destination communities in distinct linguistic ecologies. Durham is a majority African American city with a growing Latino population, while Hickory is a majority Anglo community with a slightly smaller Latino community. The contrasting Predominant Regional Varieties (PRV) in these communities reflect their distinct demographic make-up so that Durham has a large African American English (AAE) presence, while Hickory participates in the European American Southern Vowel Shift (SVS). Consonant Cluster Reduction (CCR) and fronting of the BOAT class are analyzed within this study as these two features have distinct patterns in the two PRVs, providing a test case for the influence of the surrounding linguistic ecology on emerging varieties of English. Additionally, I analyze BIDE glide weakening as a salient variable common in both regional varieties, but less well attested in Latino English. CCR patterns in this study reflect community distinctions: Latinos in Hickory follow CCR patterns attested in Southern Anglo varieties in which clusters are preserved before a pause, while participants from Durham favor deletion in this environment, patterning with constraints attested in AAE. Similarly, results from the analysis of the BOAT vowel class suggest that regional vowel systems influence Latino vowel production as the extent of fronting differs across field sites. However, when patterns of /ai/ glide weakening are examined, large interspeaker variance indicates idiosyncratic patterns of alignment with PRVs likely related to social factors not evaluated within this chapter. Hickory and Durham illustrate that reduction processes in Latino English are sensitive to patterns in the PRV, even as accommodation to vowel variants appear to vary across vowel class and reflect complex interactions between substrate features and the matrix dialect. North Carolina’s rapidly changing demographics provide a unique opportunity to observe how processes of localization within new destinations contribute to local and regional variation in Latino English even during the incipient stages of dialect formation.
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Ethnolectal and generational differences in vowel trajectories: Evidence from African American English and the Southern Vowel System Despite their potential for elucidating fine-grained differences across ethnolects and regional dialects,... more
Ethnolectal and generational differences in vowel trajectories: Evidence from African American English and the Southern Vowel System Despite their potential for elucidating fine-grained differences across ethnolects and regional dialects, vowel trajectories are neglected in sociolinguistics as group comparisons tend to rely upon F1/F2 steady-state measures. In this paper we demonstrate that comparisons of dynamic aspects of vowel production are crucial for comparing groups that may superficially align in steady-state production values. Specifically, we compare the front lax vowels BIT, BET, and BAT from the Southern Vowel Shift to those of the African American Vowel System in Piedmont, North Carolina. Data from eight older-generation European American participants from Raleigh, North Carolina, and twenty younger-generation African American participants from Piedmont, NC, come from sociolinguistic interviews. Using force-aligned TextGrids, F1 and F2 were semi-automatically measured a...
Though variation in the African American Vowel System (AAVS) has been recognized in many communities throughout the US (Thomas 2007, Yaeger-Dror and Thomas 2010), the social and socio-geographic correlates of this system remain... more
Though variation in the African American Vowel System (AAVS) has been recognized in many communities throughout the US (Thomas 2007, Yaeger-Dror and Thomas 2010), the social and socio-geographic correlates of this system remain underexplored. To examine this issue, we compare front lax vowel production for fourteen young adult women between the ages of 20 and 22 from two communities in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Durham and Chapel Hill differ both in population size and in formal measures of segregation. The African American community in Durham is both larger and more dense than the African American community in Chapel Hill. Participants also differed in their post high school activity, here called educational profile. Three participants directly entered the workforce out of high school, six attended Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), and five attended community colleges or certificate programs. While front lax vowels are raised in the AAVS, these same vow...
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Most sociolinguistic studies rely on apparent time, cross-sectional methods to analyze language change. On the basis of apparent time data, sociolinguists have hypothesized that cultural processes of lifespan change create predictable... more
Most sociolinguistic studies rely on apparent time, cross-sectional methods to analyze language change. On the basis of apparent time data, sociolinguists have hypothesized that cultural processes of lifespan change create predictable cycles of linguistic behavior in which adolescents lead in the use of vernacular variants and advance sound change (Eckert 1997). While adolescence is hypothesized to be central to vernacular optimization and language change processes, only longitudinal studies reveal whether individuals change their linguistic behavior in predictable ways across adolescence. Furthermore, longitudinal data about individual trajectories of change allow linguists to confirm or disconfirm apparent time data. As a longitudinal study of over 67 African Americans from infancy to post-high school, the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) study presents a unique opportunity to document language variation across the lifespan. This analysis is the first longitudinal acoustic analysis of vocalic variation from childhood to early adulthood. Because African American English (AAE) vowels in the Piedmont region of NC are stable, this study can explore the extent to which life-stage variation influences participation in ethnolinguistic vowel systems without the confound of a change in progress. Additionally, because longitudinal trajectories of AAE morphosyntactic/consonantal variables are documented, comparisons across linguistic subsystems reveal the extents and limits to which life-stage patterns predict linguistic cycles of behavior. This study focuses on a subset of 20 individuals at approximately age 10 (mean age: 10.1, SD .46 for primary data collection point), age 14 (mean age: 14.4, SD .45 for primary data collection point), age 16 (mean age: 16.5, SD .55 for primary data collection point), and age 20 (mean age 20.1, SD .66). Although all participants are from the Piedmont region of NC, individuals come from communities with different demographics. Hierarchical regressions show that, while participation in AAE vowels strongly correlate with community and school demographics, stable vocalic variables do not undergo aggregate-level peaking patterns consistent with age-grading. Instead, stable aggregate patterns camouflage idiosyncratic individual trajectories. A lack of group patterns for vowel variation across adolescence suggests that life-stage variation does not affect all linguistic systems equally; age-grading is a minority pattern perhaps associated with stereotyped features and/or morphosyntactic/consonantal variables. Because age-grading is not a predominant pattern for non-stereotyped vocalic variation, apparent time peaks in adolescent vowel data should not be taken for granted as a default product of age-grading.
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Most sociolinguistic descriptions of Hispanic English in the US have focused on relatively stable, durable communities, such as the Mexican-American communities of the Southwest (Penalosa 1980; Ornstein-Galicia 1984; Galindo 1987; Santa... more
Most sociolinguistic descriptions of Hispanic English in the US have focused on relatively stable, durable communities, such as the Mexican-American communities of the Southwest (Penalosa 1980; Ornstein-Galicia 1984; Galindo 1987; Santa Ana 1991; Fought 2003; Mendoza Denton 2008) or Hispanic communities in urban area of the northeastern US (Wolfram 1974; Poplack 1978; Newman 2007). These descriptions naturally recognize that these varieties combine substrate features from the historical language contact situation with vernacular traits and regional dialect features of American English in various constellations to form distinctive socioethnic varieties. For example, Fought (2003) and Mendoza Denton (2008) observe that Chicano English in Southern California combines structural traits that include substrate influence from Spanish, regional Southern California dialect traits, features from vernacular African American English, and even characteristics associated with stereotypical
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s to conference papers, from literature reviews to data analysis. At North Carolina State University (NCSU), all the members of the NCLLP have been a constant source of support. I also wish to thank Chris Weissen at the Odum Institute. I... more
s to conference papers, from literature reviews to data analysis. At North Carolina State University (NCSU), all the members of the NCLLP have been a constant source of support. I also wish to thank Chris Weissen at the Odum Institute. I am grateful for the
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From birth to early adulthood, all aspects of a child's life undergo enormous development and change, and language is no exception. This book documents the results of a pioneering longitudinal linguistic survey, which followed a... more
From birth to early adulthood, all aspects of a child's life undergo enormous development and change, and language is no exception. This book documents the results of a pioneering longitudinal linguistic survey, which followed a cohort of sixty-seven African American children over the first twenty years of life, to examine language development through childhood. It offers the first opportunity to hear what it sounds like to grow up linguistically for a cohort of African American speakers, and provides fascinating insights into key linguistics issues, such as how physical growth influences pronunciation, how social factors influence language change, and the extent to which individuals modify their language use over time. By providing a lens into some of the most foundational questions about coming of age in African American Language, this study has implications for a wide range of disciplines, from speech pathology and education, to research on language acquisition and sociolingu...
The social structure provided by schools may play a significant role in shaping the speech of youth by fostering contact between distinct varieties (Britain 1997; Trudgill 1998). This analysis uses data from a longitudinal study of... more
The social structure provided by schools may play a significant role in shaping the speech of youth by fostering contact between distinct varieties (Britain 1997; Trudgill 1998). This analysis uses data from a longitudinal study of language and literacy development to explore the role of school demographics in determining trajectories of dialect patterns among African American school children in central North Carolina. Results identify distinct relationships between phonetic and morphosyntactic subsystems and school demographics. These results have implications for educational and policy issues related to the U.S. academic achievement gap and point to the need for further research on factors that influence the language of young speakers.
KOHN, MARY ELIZABETH. Latino English in North Carolina: A Comparison of Emerging Communities. (Under the direction of Agnes Bolonyai.) Previous studies of Latino English within North Carolina cite the opportunity to explore an emerging... more
KOHN, MARY ELIZABETH. Latino English in North Carolina: A Comparison of Emerging Communities. (Under the direction of Agnes Bolonyai.) Previous studies of Latino English within North Carolina cite the opportunity to explore an emerging dialect as one of the prime motivations for their research (Carter 2004, Wolfram, Carter & Moriello 2004). And, while these studies identify community factors as creating difference between the varieties found in various locations (Wolfram, et al 2004), the larger context of Latino English must still be accounted for in order to understand how certain traits become field-site specific and which features prevail across the various emerging Latino communities in the Southeastern United States. This paper explores several linguistic variants within Latino English in two demographically distinct North Carolina communities to identify how the local ecolinguistic system and spatial setting affect an emerging dialect, and whether there are common traits betw...
While the retraction of trap is found throughout the American West, it is primarily associated with California and supposed Californian values in both the popular media and the ears of Californian listeners. This study investigates the... more
While the retraction of trap is found throughout the American West, it is primarily associated with California and supposed Californian values in both the popular media and the ears of Californian listeners. This study investigates the local construction of meaning for a supralocal sound change by examining perceptions of trap backing in Kansas, a locale that has also undergone front lax vowel retraction. Thirty-five college students heard matched-guise stimuli differing only by trap F2, guessed speakers’ regional origin, and rated speakers on 14 affective scales. Listeners associated trap backing with California (despite local participation in the sound shift) and general prestige. The authors suggest that this association with general prestige may help to explain the presence of this vowel shift in Kansas despite considerable ideological differences with California. They argue that these results highlight the interaction between local construction of meaning and broader national d...
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This chapter considers dialect formation in emerging Latino communities in North Carolina. In the last twenty-five years, historical patterns of migration and settlement have dramatically changed through the introduction of new... more
This chapter considers dialect formation in emerging Latino communities in North Carolina. In the last twenty-five years, historical patterns of migration and settlement have dramatically changed through the introduction of new destinations for Latino immigrants. These emerging contact scenarios provide linguists with the opportunity to observe how ethnolects develop and adapt in new linguistic contexts. This chapter compares emerging phonological and phonetic variation among two Latino new destination communities in distinct linguistic ecologies. Durham is a majority African American city with a growing Latino population, while Hickory is a majority Anglo community with a slightly smaller Latino community. The contrasting Predominant Regional Varieties (PRV) in these communities reflect their distinct demographic make-up so that Durham has a large African American English (AAE) presence, while Hickory participates in the European American Southern Vowel Shift (SVS). Consonant Cluster Reduction (CCR) and fronting of the BOAT class are analyzed within this study as these two features have distinct patterns in the two PRVs, providing a test case for the influence of the surrounding linguistic ecology on emerging varieties of English. Additionally, I analyze BIDE glide weakening as a salient variable common in both regional varieties, but less well attested in Latino English. CCR patterns in this study reflect community distinctions: Latinos in Hickory follow CCR patterns attested in Southern Anglo varieties in which clusters are preserved before a pause, while participants from Durham favor deletion in this environment, patterning with constraints attested in AAE. Similarly, results from the analysis of the BOAT vowel class suggest that regional vowel systems influence Latino vowel production as the extent of fronting differs across field sites. However, when patterns of /ai/ glide weakening are examined, large interspeaker variance indicates idiosyncratic patterns of alignment with PRVs likely related to social factors not evaluated within this chapter. Hickory and Durham illustrate that reduction processes in Latino English are sensitive to patterns in the PRV, even as accommodation to vowel variants appear to vary across vowel class and reflect complex interactions between substrate features and the matrix dialect. North Carolina’s rapidly changing demographics provide a unique opportunity to observe how processes of localization within new destinations contribute to local and regional variation in Latino English even during the incipient stages of dialect formation.
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This teaching note describes a lesson plan that allows students to inductively uncover differences between speech and writing while peer-teaching the history of writing systems. Students research the cultural and linguistic context of... more
This teaching note describes a lesson plan that allows students to inductively uncover differences between speech and writing while peer-teaching the history of writing systems. Students research the cultural and linguistic context of various kinds of written systems before an active-learning day in which students practice writing the scripts using various materials.
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Neighborhood and school segregation varies across time and place in the US and likely influences how language change spreads across communities. Yet, few studies investigate the role segregation plays in local patterns of sound change.... more
Neighborhood and school segregation varies across time and place in the US and likely influences how language change spreads across communities. Yet, few studies investigate the role segregation plays in local patterns of sound change. The cultural shifts that shaped the New South provide a unique opportunity to examine how changes to community and school demographics impact the spread of language change. This analysis takes a two-pronged approach to analyzing segregation and African American English (AAE) in the New South: First, I use data from the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) project to compare twenty nine participants born in 1990 who attended schools ranging from 14 percent to 96 percent African American enrollment. Second, I consider apparent-time data from participants in the Southeast Raleigh (SR) project comparing the speech of eleven participants who attended de-jure segregated schools to nine who attended post-segregation schools. I use multiple regressions to compare the front lax vowels for both analyses as front lax vowels have undergone lowering in the local European American variety during the cultural transitions that characterize the New South. The contemporary analysis reveals a correlation between segregation levels and front lax vowel raising so that African American participants who attend majority African American schools are less likely to participate in local European American sound changes than those who attend majority European American schools. However, the apparent time analysis reveals only minor differences in the front lax vowels of pre-integration and post-integration participants. These findings suggest that community segregation patterns are an important factor in whether African Americans participate in regional European American sound changes. Additionally, such variables may elucidate the conditions under which African Americans do not participate in regional sound changes outside the New South, including the more highly segregated urban North.
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Most sociolinguistic studies rely on apparent time, cross-sectional methods to analyze language change. On the basis of apparent time data, sociolinguists have hypothesized that cultural processes of lifespan change create predictable... more
Most sociolinguistic studies rely on apparent time, cross-sectional methods to analyze language change. On the basis of apparent time data, sociolinguists have hypothesized that cultural processes of lifespan change create predictable cycles of linguistic behavior in which adolescents lead in the use of vernacular variants and advance sound change (Eckert 1997). While adolescence is hypothesized to be central to vernacular optimization and language change processes, only longitudinal studies reveal whether individuals change their linguistic behavior in predictable ways across adolescence. Furthermore, longitudinal data about individual trajectories of change allow linguists to confirm or disconfirm apparent time data.
As a longitudinal study of over 67 African Americans from infancy to post-high school, the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) study presents a unique opportunity to document language variation across the lifespan. This analysis is the first longitudinal acoustic analysis of vocalic variation from childhood to early adulthood. Because African American English (AAE) vowels in the Piedmont region of NC are stable, this study can explore the extent to which life-stage variation influences participation in ethnolinguistic vowel systems without the confound of a change in progress. Additionally, because longitudinal trajectories of AAE morphosyntactic/consonantal variables are documented, comparisons across linguistic subsystems reveal the extents and limits to which life-stage patterns predict linguistic cycles of behavior.
This study focuses on a subset of 20 individuals at approximately age 10 (mean age: 10.1, SD .46 for primary data collection point), age 14 (mean age: 14.4, SD .45 for primary data collection point), age 16 (mean age: 16.5, SD .55 for primary data collection point), and age 20 (mean age 20.1, SD .66). Although all participants are from the Piedmont region of NC, individuals come from communities with different demographics. Hierarchical regressions show that, while participation in AAE vowels strongly correlate with community and school demographics, stable vocalic variables do not undergo aggregate-level peaking patterns consistent with age-grading. Instead, stable aggregate patterns camouflage idiosyncratic individual trajectories. A lack of group patterns for vowel variation across adolescence suggests that life-stage variation does not affect all linguistic systems equally; age-grading is a minority pattern perhaps associated with stereotyped features and/or morphosyntactic/consonantal variables. Because age-grading is not a predominant pattern for non-stereotyped vocalic variation, apparent time peaks in adolescent vowel data should not be taken for granted as a default product of age-grading.
As a longitudinal study of over 67 African Americans from infancy to post-high school, the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) study presents a unique opportunity to document language variation across the lifespan. This analysis is the first longitudinal acoustic analysis of vocalic variation from childhood to early adulthood. Because African American English (AAE) vowels in the Piedmont region of NC are stable, this study can explore the extent to which life-stage variation influences participation in ethnolinguistic vowel systems without the confound of a change in progress. Additionally, because longitudinal trajectories of AAE morphosyntactic/consonantal variables are documented, comparisons across linguistic subsystems reveal the extents and limits to which life-stage patterns predict linguistic cycles of behavior.
This study focuses on a subset of 20 individuals at approximately age 10 (mean age: 10.1, SD .46 for primary data collection point), age 14 (mean age: 14.4, SD .45 for primary data collection point), age 16 (mean age: 16.5, SD .55 for primary data collection point), and age 20 (mean age 20.1, SD .66). Although all participants are from the Piedmont region of NC, individuals come from communities with different demographics. Hierarchical regressions show that, while participation in AAE vowels strongly correlate with community and school demographics, stable vocalic variables do not undergo aggregate-level peaking patterns consistent with age-grading. Instead, stable aggregate patterns camouflage idiosyncratic individual trajectories. A lack of group patterns for vowel variation across adolescence suggests that life-stage variation does not affect all linguistic systems equally; age-grading is a minority pattern perhaps associated with stereotyped features and/or morphosyntactic/consonantal variables. Because age-grading is not a predominant pattern for non-stereotyped vocalic variation, apparent time peaks in adolescent vowel data should not be taken for granted as a default product of age-grading.
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Forthcoming in Using Panel Data in the Sociolinguistic Study of Variation and Change, ed. by Suzanne Evans Wagner and Isabelle Buchstaller
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Though variation in the African American Vowel System (AAVS) has been recognized in many communities throughout the US (Thomas 2007, Yaeger-Dror and Thomas 2010), the social and socio-geographic correlates of this system remain... more
Though variation in the African American Vowel System (AAVS) has been recognized in many communities throughout the US (Thomas 2007, Yaeger-Dror and Thomas 2010), the social and socio-geographic correlates of this system remain underexplored. To examine this issue, we compare front lax vowel production for fourteen young adult women between the ages of 20 and 22 from two communities in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Durham and Chapel Hill differ both in population size and in formal measures of segregation. The African American community in Durham is both larger and more dense than the African American community in Chapel Hill. Participants also differed in their post high school activity, here called educational profile. Three participants directly entered the workforce out of high school, six attended Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), and five attended community colleges or certificate programs. While front lax vowels are raised in the AAVS, these same vowels are lowering among European Americans in the region (Dodsworth and Kohn 2012). Results indicate that Chapel Hill participants have lower BAT vowel classes than Durham participants, potentially reflecting greater participation in European American sound changes. HBCU participants do not always pattern with community cohorts and vary widely in their level of participation in the AAVS. Socio-geographic factors such as spatial segregation and community density likely contribute to differences in inter-community studies of the AAVS, but the relationship between educational profile and participation is not straight-forward.
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Features of the California Vowel Shift (CVS; Eckert 2008) have been found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016). One CVS feature, TRAP backing, is associated with California and Californian values (Villarreal 2016). It... more
Features of the California Vowel Shift (CVS; Eckert 2008) have been found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016). One CVS feature, TRAP backing, is associated with California and Californian values (Villarreal 2016). It remains to be seen what regional identities or values TRAP backing indexes in communities undergoing the CVS outside of California. This study investigates the local construction of meaning for a supra-local sound change by examining how listeners in the Midwestern state of Kansas, which is undergoing front lax vowel retraction, perceive TRAP backing.
Fifty-one university students participated in a matched-guise task featuring stimuli read by young Kansan speakers. In each trial, listeners rated speakers on 14 Likert scales. Four critical stimuli belonged to one of two matched guises, which were acoustically manipulated such that only TRAP F2 differed between matched guises. Conservative guises contained fronted TRAP and shifted guises contained backed TRAP.
A principal components analysis of ratings revealed three principal components: PC1, measuring “general prestige,” PC2, measuring “Kansan-ness,” and PC3, measuring “innovativeness.” PC1 and PC3 significantly correlated with guise (p < .05), with shifted guises rated higher on “general prestige” and “innovativeness.” Conversely, PC2 significantly correlated with listeners’ regional identifications (p < .001), as stimuli rated high for “Kansan-ness” were most likely to be identified as being from Kansas and least likely to be identified as being from New York or California.
These results suggest that instead of associating TRAP backing with local identity, as in California, this sound change appears to index prestige and youth in Kansas, perhaps motivating the spread of this sound change in the region. These results provide clues to the rapid spread of the CVS, highlighting the local construction of meaning for a supra-local sound change.
Fifty-one university students participated in a matched-guise task featuring stimuli read by young Kansan speakers. In each trial, listeners rated speakers on 14 Likert scales. Four critical stimuli belonged to one of two matched guises, which were acoustically manipulated such that only TRAP F2 differed between matched guises. Conservative guises contained fronted TRAP and shifted guises contained backed TRAP.
A principal components analysis of ratings revealed three principal components: PC1, measuring “general prestige,” PC2, measuring “Kansan-ness,” and PC3, measuring “innovativeness.” PC1 and PC3 significantly correlated with guise (p < .05), with shifted guises rated higher on “general prestige” and “innovativeness.” Conversely, PC2 significantly correlated with listeners’ regional identifications (p < .001), as stimuli rated high for “Kansan-ness” were most likely to be identified as being from Kansas and least likely to be identified as being from New York or California.
These results suggest that instead of associating TRAP backing with local identity, as in California, this sound change appears to index prestige and youth in Kansas, perhaps motivating the spread of this sound change in the region. These results provide clues to the rapid spread of the CVS, highlighting the local construction of meaning for a supra-local sound change.
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Features of the California Vowel Shift (CVS; Eckert 2008) are found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016). One CVS feature, TRAP backing, is associated with California and supposed Californian values in the popular media... more
Features of the California Vowel Shift (CVS; Eckert 2008) are found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016). One CVS feature, TRAP backing, is associated with California and supposed Californian values in the popular media (Pratt and D’Onofrio 2014). It remains to be seen what regional identities or values TRAP backing indexes in communities undergoing the CVS outside of California. This study investigates the local construction of meaning for a supra-local sound change by examining how college students in Kansas, a region undergoing front lax vowel retraction, perceive TRAP backing.
Fifty-one listeners participated in a perceptual task involving stimuli read by young Kansan speakers; this task combined properties of dialect recognition tasks (Williams et al. 1999) and matched-guise tasks (Campbell-Kibler 2007). In each trial, listeners identified speakers’ regional origin and rated speakers on 14 affective Likert scales. Four critical stimuli belonged to one of two matched guises, which were acoustically manipulated such that only TRAP F2 differed between matched guises (Villarreal 2016). Conservative guises contained fronted (higher F2) TRAP and shifted guises contained backed (lower F2) TRAP.
A Bayesian analysis of regional identification found that listeners identified the shifted guise as significantly more likely to be from California than the conservative guise, indicating some association between TRAP backing and California among listeners in Kansas; guise did not affect other regional identification categories, however. A principal components analysis revealed three principal components that together accounted for 61% of the variance in ratings. PC1, measuring “general prestige,” combined seven scales, including likeable, polite, and educated; PC2, measuring “Kansan-ness,” combined two scales: Kansan and small town; and PC3, measuring “innovativeness,” combined three scales: young, feminine, and fast.
PC1 and PC3 significantly correlated with guise, with shifted guises rated higher on “general prestige” and “innovativeness” than their conservative counterparts. Conversely, PC2 significantly correlated with listeners’ regional identifications, as stimuli rated high for “Kansan-ness” were most likely to be identified as being from Kansas and least likely to be identified as being from New York or California. These results suggest that in Kansas, TRAP backing is associated with California despite local participation in the sound shift. Instead of associating TRAP backing with local identity, as Californians do, this sound change appears to index both prestige and youth in Kansas, perhaps motivating the spread of this sound change in the region. These results highlight the local construction of meaning for a sound change, while also providing some clues to the rapid supra-local spread of the CVS.
Fifty-one listeners participated in a perceptual task involving stimuli read by young Kansan speakers; this task combined properties of dialect recognition tasks (Williams et al. 1999) and matched-guise tasks (Campbell-Kibler 2007). In each trial, listeners identified speakers’ regional origin and rated speakers on 14 affective Likert scales. Four critical stimuli belonged to one of two matched guises, which were acoustically manipulated such that only TRAP F2 differed between matched guises (Villarreal 2016). Conservative guises contained fronted (higher F2) TRAP and shifted guises contained backed (lower F2) TRAP.
A Bayesian analysis of regional identification found that listeners identified the shifted guise as significantly more likely to be from California than the conservative guise, indicating some association between TRAP backing and California among listeners in Kansas; guise did not affect other regional identification categories, however. A principal components analysis revealed three principal components that together accounted for 61% of the variance in ratings. PC1, measuring “general prestige,” combined seven scales, including likeable, polite, and educated; PC2, measuring “Kansan-ness,” combined two scales: Kansan and small town; and PC3, measuring “innovativeness,” combined three scales: young, feminine, and fast.
PC1 and PC3 significantly correlated with guise, with shifted guises rated higher on “general prestige” and “innovativeness” than their conservative counterparts. Conversely, PC2 significantly correlated with listeners’ regional identifications, as stimuli rated high for “Kansan-ness” were most likely to be identified as being from Kansas and least likely to be identified as being from New York or California. These results suggest that in Kansas, TRAP backing is associated with California despite local participation in the sound shift. Instead of associating TRAP backing with local identity, as Californians do, this sound change appears to index both prestige and youth in Kansas, perhaps motivating the spread of this sound change in the region. These results highlight the local construction of meaning for a sound change, while also providing some clues to the rapid supra-local spread of the CVS.