Ethnicity and Sound Change in San Francisco English

Abstract

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The vowel space as sociolinguistic sign

“…GOOSE and GOAT were split into three subclasses each according to preceding and following phonological segment. The subclassification of TOO and TOE (postcoronal instances of GOOSE and GOAT), reflects robust findings that tokens in this environment show more advanced fronting than in other environments (e.g., Hall-Lew, 2009;Podesva et al, 2015). In addition, the subclassification of POOL and BOWL (prelateral instances of GOOSE and GOAT) reflects the tendency for a following /l/ to impede vowel fronting.…”

“…The present study emerges from a linguistic ethnography of a high school in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, and focuses in particular on the adolescent speakers' vocalic variation. The broader context of vocalic variation in California, the ongoing California Vowel Shift (CVS), is now established by a robust body of sociolinguistic work beginning in the 1980s (e.g., Hinton, Moonwomon, Bremner, Luthin, Van Clay, Lerner, and Corcoran, 1987;Eckert, 2008b;Hall-Lew, 2009;Podesva, 2011;Kennedy and Grama, 2012). It was initially described in conventionalized terms within sound change scholarship as a chain shift involving the fronting of the high back vowels GOOSE and GOAT, and a lowering and backing of the front lax vowels KIT, DRESS, and TRAP.…”

“…As noted above, there have been suggestions in California and beyond of vowel space "reshaping"as at least a result of sound change, or perhaps even more fundamental to processes of phonological change. Analyses of vocalic sound change in California have shown individual vowels moving in the direction of vowel space compression: namely via fronting of the high back vowels and lowering and backing of the front lax vowel (e.g., Hinton et al, 1987;Hall-Lew, 2009;Kennedy and Grama, 2012). Further, D'Onofrio et al (2019) demonstrate that some of these changes occur within the span of just one generation, casting doubt on a chain shift interpretation and suggesting instead a more holistic phonological process of vowel space compression.…”

(Divergent) Participation in the California Vowel Shift by Korean Americans in Southern California

“…Figure 1, created from data of millennial speakers reported in D'Onofrio et al ( 2019) 1 , demonstrates the vocalic changes involved in the California Vowel Shift. The California Vowel Shift is characterized by three main phenomena: (1) the low-back merger of /ɑ/ (e.g., bot) and /ɔ/ (e.g., bought), (2) the lowering and retraction of lax front vowels /ɪ/ (e.g., bit), /ɛ/ (e.g., bet), and /ae/ (e.g., bat), and (3) the fronting of high-and mid-back vowels /u/ (e.g., boot), /ʊ/ (e.g., book), /o/ (e.g., boat), and /ʌ/ (e.g., but) (D'Onofrio et al 2016;D'Onofrio et al 2019;Hagiwara 1997;Hall-Lew 2009;Hall-Lew et al 2015;Hinton et al 1987;Kennedy and Grama 2012;Podesva et al 2015). Following the pattern of General American English presented in The Atlas of North American English (Labov et al 2006), prenasal /ae/ in California English is tensed, resulting in a split between tensed /ae/ in a prenasal context (e.g., ban) and lowered /ae/ elsewhere (Eckert 2008).…”

“…Th the two are perceived identical or if However, if an L2 sound is perceptu new category. Early bilinguals tend and cross-linguistic contrasts (Chan / (e.g., but) (D'Onofrio et al 2016;D'Onofrio et al 2019;Hagiwara 1997;Hall-Lew 2009;Hall-Lew et al 2015;Hinton et al 1987;Kennedy and Grama 2012;Podesva et al 2015). Following the pattern of General American English presented in The Atlas of North American English (Labov et al 2006), prenasal /ae/ in California English is tensed, resulting in a split between tensed /ae/ in a prenasal context (e.g., ban) and lowered /ae/ elsewhere (Eckert 2008).…”