The Internal Dynamics of a Metropolitan New York Vocalic Paradigm

Berger, Marshall D.

doi:10.2307/455374

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Raised BOUGHT has been documented as a feature of NYCE since the mid-twentieth century (Thomas 1942(Thomas , 1947Frank 1948;Hubbell 1950;Westmore 1959;Labov 1966;Berger 1968;Labov et al 2006). Although raised BOUGHT is produced along the eastern seaboard from Providence south to Baltimore (Labov et al 2006), in NYCE it is part of a larger set of long and ingliding vowels that are considered unique to the dialect due to NYCE's continued variable nonrhoticity.…”

Section: R a I S E D B O U G H T I N N Y C Ementioning

confidence: 99%

The social motivations of reversal: Raisedboughtin New York City English

Becker

2014

Lang. Soc.

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This article presents a variationist analysis of theboughtvowel in New York City English (NYCE) and finds that it has reversed the trajectory of change outlined in Labov (1966). An acoustic analysis of production data from sixty-four native residents of the Lower East Side demonstrates thatboughtis lowering in apparent time, a change led by young people, white and Jewish speakers, and the middle classes. A second source of data comes from perceptions of raisedboughtgathered from a matched guise experiment, which highlights an indexical field (Eckert 2008) of social meanings for raisedboughtthat comprise a ‘classic New Yorker’ persona: an older, white ethnic New Yorker from the outer boroughs who is mean and aloof. Taken together, the data suggest thatbought's reversal is motivated by its contemporary social meanings. (bought,New York City English, dialectology, variationism, sound change, social meaning, perception, sociophonetics)*

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Section: R a I S E D B O U G H T I N N Y C Ementioning

confidence: 99%

The social motivations of reversal: Raisedboughtin New York City English

Becker

2014

Lang. Soc.

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“…Within this range of dialects there are big differences of pronunciation-between Cockney and RP, for instance-but the vowel system is essentially the same. For speakers who have no postvocalic /r/ PALM is equivalent either to LOT or to START, and THOUGHT is the same as FORCE= NORTH (Berger 1968). But rhotacism is increasing, and for r-ful speakers PALM and START are differentiated by the presence of /r/ in the latter, and similarly for THOUGHT versus FORCE= NORTH.…”

Section: Toward a Pan-dialect Phonology Of Englishmentioning

confidence: 95%

Toward a pan-dialect phonology of English

Kreidler¹

1990

WORD</i>

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“…The regional dialect NYCE has a long tradition of dialectological description, from Babbit (1896) through Labov (1966) and Berger (1968). These studies describe distinctive phonological features of NYCE, including non‐rhoticity (dropping the /r/ in words like fourth and floor ), the distinction between words like back and bag (the short‐ a split), and the raising of the vowel /ø/ in words like caught and coffee .…”

Section: Part One: Erasing Ethnicity In Nycementioning
confidence: 99%

“…These studies describe distinctive phonological features of NYCE, including non‐rhoticity (dropping the /r/ in words like fourth and floor ), the distinction between words like back and bag (the short‐ a split), and the raising of the vowel /ø/ in words like caught and coffee . Yet crucially, these studies sample only speakers of European descent (Babbit 1896; Thomas 1942, 1947; Frank 1948; Kurath 1949; Hubbell 1950; Westmore 1959; Kurah and McDavid 1961; Bronstein 1962; Berger 1968; Nunberg 1980). In part this practice began with an assumption that regional dialect patterns were set early on in the USA by English settlers, so that immigrant groups arriving pre‐1880, like the Irish and Germans, assimilated to local patterns within a few generations (Kurath 1949: 4).…”

Section: Part One: Erasing Ethnicity In Nycementioning
confidence: 99%

The Sociolinguistics of Ethnicity in New York City
Becker
¹
,
Coggshall
²

2009
Language and Linguist. Compass
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This paper reviews the vast literature from sociolinguistics on ethnicity in New York City. Prior work falls into two camps: first, early work in dialectology on New York City English that often erased ethnic distinctions and presented a homogenous, white city; and second, later work investigating minority ethnic groups, often speakers of Languages Other than English. Here we summarize both threads of work, and suggest that the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which significantly changed the composition of immigrants in New York City, marks a turning point from work concerned with whites to that concerned with other ethnic groups. We also promote newer conceptions of ethnicity that view it as a fluid category concerned with the construction and/or destruction of boundaries. New York City's tremendous ethnolinguistic diversity makes it a unique site for explorations into ethnic identity practices.

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The Internal Dynamics of a Metropolitan New York Vocalic Paradigm

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

The social motivations of reversal: Raisedboughtin New York City English

The social motivations of reversal: Raisedboughtin New York City English

Toward a pan-dialect phonology of English

The Sociolinguistics of Ethnicity in New York City

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