A tale of two cities (and one vowel): Sociolinguistic variation in Swedish

Abstract

Previous studies of language contact in multilingual urban neighborhoods in Europe claim the emergence of new varieties spoken by immigrant-background youth. This paper examines the sociolinguistic conditioning of variation in allophones of Swedish /ε:/ of young people of immigrant and nonimmigrant background in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Although speaker background and sex condition the variation, their effects differ in each city. In Stockholm there are no significant social differences and the allophonic difference appears to have been neutralized. Gothenburg speakers are divided into three groups, based on speaker origin and sex, each of which orients toward different norms. Our conclusions appeal to dialectal diffusion and the desire to mark ethnic identity in a diverse sociolinguistic context. These results demonstrate that not only language contact but also dialect change should be considered together when investigating language variation in modern-day cities.

Segregated vowels: Language variation and dialect features among Gothenburg youth

“…In other words, they are dropping the allophonic rule in favor of an open pronunciation in all contexts, not just before /r/. However, Gross, Boyd, Leinonen, and Walker's (2016) analysis of recordings made in 2002 showed that the allophonic rule was still used by Gothenburg youth with Swedish-born mothers and that boys in this group had a tendency to a more closed pronunciation in both contexts, although the allophones were kept separate. They also found that the group with the highest degree of variation in the realization of /ε:/ were girls with Swedish-born mothers.…”

“…This sound change is a general tendency in a large part of the country, especially around Gothenburg and Stockholm (Leinonen, 2010). Gross et al (2016) showed that the adaptation of this sound change was most obvious in the speech of youth with foreign-born mothers, where the open [æ:] production was prevalent and the allophonic rule was more rarely applied (Gross et al, 2016).…”

“…The /ε:/ vowel is probably the best described of all the vowels (Gross et al, 2016). It seems as though there has been a change from a closed position to a more open one, but there is also evidence of social differentiation, where adolescents with FBs have the most open vowels and do not make a distinction between the allophones, whereas there is a division based on gender in the group with Swedish-born parents such that girls tend to orient toward the standard dialect and boys toward the more traditional dialect.…”

The Nature of Phonetic Gradience across a Dialect Continuum: Evidence from Modern Greek Vowels

“…The alternative hypothesis is that there are differences in the vowel space area. If the alternative hypothesis is corrected as studies from English and other languages suggest (e.g., Labov, 1994;Labov et al, 2006;Boberg, 2008;Gross et al, 2016), we expect significant effects of the variety on the F1 and F2.…”

Rhythm in Stockholm's two working-class varieties: Separate models predict intervocalic durational contrast

“…Stockholm's multiethnolect is part of this linguistic phenomenon that has been exclusively seen (thus far) in cities of European countries that ran postwar guest-worker programs. These include Berlin [2], Copenhagen [3], Gothenburg [4], Hamburg [5], London (Multicultural London English, 'MLE') [6], Malmö [7], Mannheim [8], Oslo [9], Paris [10], Rotterdam [11], and the South Midlands [12].…”