MEXICAN-AMERICAN CHICAGO ENGLISH
(MACE):
A case study of four speakers
Hannah Pick
Advised by Mary Paster and Carmen Fought
Department of Linguistics
Pomona College
May 2007
INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
A leading name in the field of Sociolinguistics, William Labov, claims that
although “the sound changes sweeping across the United States have been portrayed as if
they were general phenomena affecting to varying degrees all levels of the speech
community”, “those children who are integral members of a sub-community that
American society defines as ‘non-white’ — Black, Hispanic, or Native-American…no
matter how frequently they are exposed to the local vernacular, the new patterns of
regional sound change do not surface in their speech” (Labov 2001:506). Recently, a
wave of studies has created a controversy surrounding the claims that American speech
varieties are diverging along ethnic lines and ethnic dialects regardless of region and
other social factors exhibit uniform linguistic patterns. This first claim made is
commonly referred to as the “divergence hypothesis” (Labov 1987; Bailey and Maynor
1989). The second more recent claim is sometimes known as the “uniformity
controversy. 1 ” The majority of this new wave of studies examines African-American
Vernacular English (AAVE). In terms of phonology, these studies attempt to investigate
whether speakers of AAVE do in fact participate in the new patterns of local regional
sound changes. In addition, they try to establish whether certain characteristics are
common to AAVE as a uniform dialect across the United States, yielding a nation-wide
set of AAVE phonological rules or constraints. While findings suggest that AAVE
speakers do participate in mainstream regional sound changes, they also suggest the
existence of certain nation-wide features characteristic of regional dialects of AAVE
across the US. This makes theoretical sense if we assume that language change and
variation is both contact-based and identity-based.
1
“American Vowel Phonology and African American Ethnicity” Symposium 2007 Announcement
1
M.A.K. Halliday observed that certain lexical items appear in certain contexts.
He attributed this to the fact that the language of groups and individuals in distinct social
roles needs to articulate different meanings. For example, lawyers use a specific
technical vocabulary, which acts as an insignia of identity both internally and externally.
Because one must obtain a certain education to become a lawyer, it is highly unlikely that
someone without this education would be able to use and understand these terms. This
creates exclusivity in that only someone with this ability will be able to pass as a lawyer.
As a result, someone who possesses this particular vocabulary and utilizes it is, in a
sense, asserting their identity as a lawyer while also making this affiliation clear to
others; although not everyone can use and understand these terms fluently, they can often
recognize group association based on identification of particular terms associated with
that specific group.
The same concept can be applied to different accents or dialects. In the technical
use of the term in linguistics, the term dialect is commonly referred to as a neutral label
for any variety of a language which is shared by a group of speakers; “the particular
social factors which correlate with dialect diversity may range from simple geography to
the complex notion of cultural identity” (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2002: 2). Despite
the fact that language is arbitrary, this definition presents an illusory equality of dialects.
Theoretically, no dialect is more or less ‘grammatical’ than any other dialect. However,
in society it is undeniable that different linguistic varieties are associated with privilege
and are thus socially favored while others are associated with a lack of power and
privation and are thus socially stigmatized.
2
The utilization of linguistic variations associated with powerful groups in society
can act as a useful tool while the utilization of linguistic variations associated with
weaker groups in society can act as a disadvantage. According to Pierre Bourdieu, there
is a linguistic economy in society which assigns more or less linguistic capital to different
linguistic variations or dialects. Speakers who possess a competence of the higher capital
forms are thus socially distinguished from those who do not have competence of these
forms. This system creates a linguistic intimidation and consequent subordination in
those speakers who do not possess the competence of these higher capital forms. In turn,
the roles of those in power, their higher social status, and their higher socio-economic
status remain in tact due to linguistic variation and ranking. Theoretically, then,
according to Bourdieu social class is reflected in language variation. Consequentially, it
is highly likely that this socially hierarchal linguistic system is strong enough to
overcome boundaries of ethnicity (i.e., “integral members of a sub-community that
American society defines as ‘non-white’ — Black, Hispanic, or Native-American” who
are part of the higher socio-economic class should theoretically possess a competence of
the higher capital forms (Labov 2001: 506)).
It is well established by many studies that social class is reflected in speech. One
famous example that established a correlation between a phonological variable and social
class is a study conducted by Labov et al. in 1962, which examined the social
stratification of /r/-deletion by surveying people in three New York City department
stores that attracted customer bases of different socio-economic backgrounds. In this
study, Labov found that the variable /r/-deletion was in fact a social differentiator in all
levels of New York City speech and thus a sociolinguistic variable. Those pertaining to
3
the upper classes were more likely to pronounce the phoneme ‘r’ in the words “fourth
floor” than those pertaining to the lower classes (Labov 1966: 187-203). Another wellknown study was conducted by Walt Wolfram et al in Detroit, Michigan in 1969. The
study established class differences within the African-American Vernacular English
dialect (Wolfram 1969), suggesting that social class is reflected in speech crossethnically.
The fact that social class and other sociological factors such as ethnicity are
reflected in speech could be an internal or external indicator of belonging to a certain
linguistic community or social group. Many times, the pronunciation of certain sounds
can be correlated with social stratification, status and/or personal identity. In addition to
socio-economic status, ethnicity and other social markers play roles in shaping a person’s
identity both internally and perceptually. Although sub-communities will likely share
dialectical linguistic characteristics, regional and socio-economic variation among other
factors will also play a role in each specific speaker’s idiolect and accent.
It is not uncommon for speakers to be competent in multiple dialects. This is
logical upon acceptance of Bourdieu’s idea of the linguistic economy. Many speakers are
intuitively aware of the social stigma and status associated with various dialects. But,
while one dialect may be stigmatized in a certain speech community, this same dialect
may be associated with status in another speech community. For example, in a MexicanAmerican or African-American neighborhood one might be laughed at and/or ostracized
for ‘talking white’ because non-standard dialect use can act as a way of demonstrating
group loyalty, pride and solidarity. However, many studies show that people who use the
standard dialect, or ‘talk white,’ in a job interview are more likely to be hired for jobs and
4
receive other benefits than those who use non-standard dialects. Therefore, it is socially
adaptive, not only to develop competence in multiple dialects, but also to develop the
ability to judge in which context/s it is appropriate to use each of these dialects; in many
contexts it may be accepted to use a mixture of dialects.
According to Lesley Milroy, linguistic change takes place through speakers’
affiliations with a variety of different speech communities because it is their identity and
status in the communities to which they belong that are most important to them rather
than their status in another community or at large. A speaker’s social network has
considerable influence on their identity and consequentially on their dialect. Within a
person’s social network there are multiple variables that influence how important each
relationship is to identity; “research shows that social network density and multiplexity
can have a significant impact on dialect maintenance and change” (Wolfram and
Schilling-Estes 2002: 33). Speakers who relate to each other in different contexts in
different social roles are more likely to posses more features in common than speakers
who always interact in the same context in the same social role. For example, you are
more likely to speak like someone who is your co-worker and your neighbor than like
someone who is your teacher but with whom you do not interact outside of the
classroom/school environment. The amount that speakers know and/or spend time with
other speakers as well as the level of intimacy of the relationship they share also impacts
the amount of idiolect overlap.
Thus internal and external identification with different social groups and networks
influences linguistic variables in a speakers’ dialect. In addition to ethnicity, geographic
region, age, and social class all impact linguistic variation. In this thesis I will describe
5
the speech of four speakers who identify as Mexican-American Chicagoans. It is my
intention to disprove Labov’s claim that members of ‘non-white’ communities will not
exhibit patterns of regional sound change in their speech even if they are exposed to the
local vernacular through examination of whether their speech exhibits phonological
variables associated with White Chicago English. I predict that their speech will be
affected by local Chicago sound changes in addition to characteristics common to
Mexican-American dialects in other regions of the nation. The distribution of these
effects will vary by speaker relative to various external social factors as well as personal
identifications.
EMPIRICAL BACKGROUNDBefore examining the speech of Mexican-American Chicagoans, I will review
some of the empirical evidence that has been published both in support of and in
opposition to the theory that speakers of non-white dialects do not participate in local
regional sound change both in African-American Vernacular English and in Los Angeles
Chicano English. In a defining study of sociolinguistics, William Labov documented
patterns of linguistic change and variation in Portuguese and Indian speakers on the
island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in 1963. Upon interaction with tourists on
the island, Portugues and Indian speakers increased their usage of vowel patterns
uncommon to tourists’ speech as a means of distinguishing themselves. In accordance
with this phenomenon, Labov notes divergence rather than convergence of AfricanAmerican Vernacular English in Philadelphia:
acoustic studies of the speech of black Philadelphians show that…Younger African American
speakers show increasing departure from the Philadelphia system…[In] [a]n experimental
procedure which modified the nuclei /aw/ in out and house, [this] led to an extreme shift of ethnic
identification from black to white, equal to the most extreme natural style shifting. When black,
white, or Puerto Rican subjects heard the fronted form of /aw/, the great majority switched their
6
identification of the ethnicity of the speaker from black to white. Thus the most conservative
Philadelphia dialect with low front [æo], is distinctively marked as “white” for the black
population.
Labov 2001: 507-508
One of the most well-known studies on AAVE was done by Walt Wolfram et al. in
Detroit, Michigan in 1969. In the study, Wolfram et al. took data on linguistic variables
across different social strata within the African-American community in Detroit. With
regards to phonological variables, some of the variables they measured included
postvocalic /r/-deletion, simplification of consonant clusters, and pronunciation of the
voiceless dental fricative /θ/ as the alveolar voiceless stop /t/. The study was significant
in that it established class differences within the African-American Vernacular English
dialect just as socio-economic differences within Standard White New York English were
established three years earlier in Labov’s department store research in New York City.
Yet unlike many linguistic variables that were documented in Standard English as
variants in lower echelon speech communities and infrequent to non-existent in upper
echelon speech communities, the use of these phonological variables in AfricanAmericans in Wolfram’s study was prevalent in the vernacular speech of all socioeconomic groups. However, the frequency of these variables was stratified according to
class. 2
Thus, this study and the research it inspired highlight the importance of linguistic
style as a marker of solidarity for African-Americans across the nation. This
phenomenon can be observed especially in African-American figures in the media such
as Oprah Winfrey. A recent study showed that one of the country’s most popular talkshow hosts sometimes pronounced the words “I” and “my” as [ɑ] and [mɑ] despite the
2
Many studies were modeled after Wolfram et al.’s research in Detroit such as follow-up work done by
Walter Edwards in Detroit in 1992 and a study by Catherine Chappell conducted in Oakland , among
others.
7
fact that she does not speak with a Southern Accent (Rickford and Rickford 2000: 106107). Other pronunciations associated with African-American Vernacular English can be
observed in portrayals of African-Americans of high social class in the media. For
example, this can be noted in the sit-com “The Hughleys,” in the speech of the comedian
Chris Rock as well as in the majority of the characters in the more dated television
program, “The Cosby Show”. Despite the fact that Wolfram et al. and their study in
Detroit was beneficial in recognizing sociolinguistic variables and the use of style within
the African-American community at large, there was an important limitation to their
research. Their study showcased phonological variables in African-American English
that are characteristic only of AAVE and not of Standard White English. They did not,
however, acknowledge characteristics AAVE shares with SWE nor did they consider the
possibility that AAVE speakers might partake in standard local sound changes in addition
to exhibiting AAVE distinct features.
Christine Mallinson has done a significant amount of research suggesting that
speakers of the AAVE dialect do in fact participate in local regional sound change. In
2002 she conducted research on the diagnostic phonological (e.g. postvocalic /r/ deletion,
/ɑI/ ungliding, etc.) and morphosyntactic patterns exhibited in a long-term, bi-ethnic
enclave mountain community in Beech Bottom, North Carolina where of the ten longtime
residents, three were European American and seven were historically considered
“African-American” in the American South although in reality they were of mixed
descent. Mallison found that the African-Americans in the community accommodated
the local Appalachian dialect norms. In this community, apart from the accommodation,
she found evidence for “persistent substrate influence in the historical development of
8
AAVE” (Mallinson 2002). However, Mallinson and Wolfram later conclude that
although
earlier African American English largely accommodated local dialects while maintaining a subtle,
distinctive ethnolinguistic divide…, there is no current movement toward an AAVE external norm
for the lone isolated African American teenager; rather there is an increasing accommodation to
the local dialect. Contact-based, identity-based, and ideologically based explanations are appealed
to in describing the past and present direction of change for the African Americans in this receding
community.
Mallinson and Wolfram 2002
This evidence provides opposition to Labov’s claim that AAVE is diverging from other
dialects of English. It suggests that AAVE in this bi-ethnic enclave community is in fact
converging with the local regional dialect. Unlike Wolfram et al. (1969), however,
Mallinson and Wolfram (2002) do address the other issues at hand in their explanation of
these patterns, acknowledging the possibility that other communities of AfricanAmerican teenagers may exhibit phonological variables that are common nation-wide to
African-American teenagers and are not present in Standard White English. Mallinson
and Wolfram go further to suggest that these phenomena can be attributed to “contactbased, identity-based, and ideologically based explanations” (Mallinson and Wolfram
2002).
In 2006 Becky Childs and Christine Mallinson found more contrary evidence to
the divergence hypothesis. Their findings suggested that adolescent AAVE speakers in
the black Appalachian community of Texana, North Carolina converged phonologically
and morphologically with regional speech patterns. Despite this convergence, Child and
Mallinson noted that these speakers did linguistically differentiate themselves as AfricanAmerican. Yet, rather than diverging phonologically, adolescent African-American
Texana residents used distinct lexical items to assert their ethnic identities (Childs and
Mallinson 2006)
9
Most of the research done regarding the divergence hypothesis examines AfricanAmerican Vernacular English. Although little work has looked at Mexican-American
English in the United States, a few studies have concentrated on the speech of this nonwhite group. The majority of this subset of research focuses on Mexican-American
speech in the Southwestern United States although a few studies have been conducted
with Mexican-Americans in the Midwest. Most of the literature refers to MexicanAmerican English as Chicano English, which defined by Carmen Fought as “a nonstandard variety of English, influenced by contact with Spanish, and spoken as a native
dialect by both bilingual and monolingual speakers” (Fought 2003: 1). 3
In 1999, Carmen Fought published a study presenting evidence that “/u/-fronting,
a sound change observable in California Anglo speakers, is found in the minority
Mexican-American community as well, among speakers of Chicano English” (Fought
1999). In the study Fought notes that the focus of most sociolinguistic research focuses
on social variables and fails to put these variables into the context of the community at
hand. In addition, she highlights “the importance of incorporating interactions among
social factors into a sociolinguistic analysis” (Fought 1999).
Unlike African-Americans or many Mexican-Americans in the Southwest whose
families have been in the United States for generations, most of the Mexican-Americans
in Chicago are the children or grandchildren of immigrants. The influx of Mexican
immigrants to the Midwest is a much more recent phenomenon with its origins in the 20th
3
The term Chicano was developed to describe Mexican-Americans in the Southwest and many MexicanAmericans in other regions of the United States do not identify as Chicanos; “most Chicano scholarship
consciously explores themes related to Mexican experiences in the so-called Southwest, and rhetorical
emphasis is placed on the historical priority and multigenerational longevity of Chicanos in that region.
Chicago has been almost invisible—or in any case, rather incidental—in most Chicano scholarship and
literature as well” (Genova 2007; 93-94). As a result I refer to dialect spoken by my participants in Chicago
as Mexican-American Chicago English rather than as Chicago Chicano English.
10
century. As a result, the immigrant experience and identity is also an important factor in
the identity formation of Mexican-Americans in Chicago. While many AfricanAmericans and Mexican-Americans in the Southwest may have more reason to be
concerned with distinguishing themselves from local Anglo-American groups, many
Mexican-Americans in the Midwest may be more focused on pressures to fit into
mainstream American society. Ruth Horowitz identifies the American Dream as a
pivotal theme in the Mexican-American community in Chicago (Horowitz 1992). Thus,
if Mexican-Americans in Southern California are participating in local sound changes,
according to this analysis, it is even more likely that Mexican-Americans in the Midwest
will take part in regional phonological patterns.
Empirically, there has not been much investigation regarding this question and the
little that has been published presents conflicting evidence. Contrary to this analysis and
Carmen Fought’s research on /u/-fronting in Southern California, Matthew Gordon’s
research suggests the opposite case in Calumet, Indiana. Gordon observed that although
the whites in Calumet participated in /æ/-raising, a vowel shift brought about by the
Northern Cities Chain shift, it was almost non-existent in the speech of MexicanAmericans in the region. Furthermore, “clear evidence of participation in the NCS is
found among white speakers, and Mexican and African-Americans generally seem not to
have adopted the changes…[and] the fact that the patterns are so clear-cut suggests that
surveying more speakers is unlikely to lead to any serious contradiction of the trends seen
here” (Gordon 2000; 123). However, Gordon’s study is based on auditory
impressionistic transcriptions rather than quantitative measurement of vowel formants.
This allows for the possibility of bias in that the researchers’ transcriptions might have
11
been influenced non-consciously by their perception of the speaker’s race, gender, and/or
where they are from. 4
On the other hand, there has also been research published suggesting that
Midwestern Mexican-Americans do participate in local sound changes. While Fought
and Gordon’s studies focused on the divergence hypothesis, Timothy Frazer looked for
evidence of uniformity across the United States within Mexican-American dialects. In a
study conducted in 1996, he compared features commonly associated with Chicano
English in the Southwest with those same features in the speech of Mexican-Americans
in Rock Falls, Illinois. He found that the speech of Mexican-Americans in Rock Falls
was markedly different from that of the white vernacular in the region although the two
varieties did share some of the patterns associated with the Northern Cities Chain Shift
such as /ae/-raising. In addition, Frazer noticed that Rock Falls Mexican American
speech was also marked from Chicano English in the Southwest in that it exhibited fewer
“Hispanic features” although these two varieties did have some features in common as
well (Frazer 1996; 82).
Ethnicity is an important social factor which influences linguistic variation.
However, geography and other social factors play significant roles as well. While much
of the research published argues one way or the other, I feel that categorizing dialects
according to ethnicity or region does not need to be mutually exclusive, nor does one
social factor have to be significantly more dominant than another. The personalities and
self-perceptions of individuals in a socially defined group are multi-dimensional and fall
within a range, usually overlapping to a certain extent with those belonging to different
4
There is evidence which suggests that listeners’ categorical perception of sounds is affected by perceived
characteristics of a speaker such as race, gender and where the speaker is from (see Eberhardt 2005 and
references therein http://www.pitt.edu/~maest38/race%20and%20perception.pdf).
12
groups. I propose that dialect and idiolect variation functions in a parallel manner in that
speakers of a given non-white dialect will fall within a range of linguistic variation that
will exhibit at least some of the local sound change and some features commonly
associated with dialect as a whole across the US. I hypothesize that the amount of local
sound change maintained by any non-white speaker will depend on a variety of social
factors (e.g. socio-economic level, sex, age, etc.) in addition to their relative contact with
the local standard vernacular, their ideologies, and their external and self-perceived
identities.
CASE STUDY AND RATIONALE FOR CASE STUDY
According to Thomas Veatch, “the system of phonetic implementation relates
surface phonological structures to measurable phonetic forms” (Veatch 1991: 7). In other
words, the features of each segment in an utterance are the same cross-linguistically and
the phonetic interpretation of these structures is what varies from language to language,
dialect to dialect, etc.. This suggests the existence of a “phonetic grammar” as opposed
to attributing variance to featural differences in surface phonological structure, implying
that the phonetics is a pure physical realization of differing phonological structures. In
this thesis I will describe the phonetic properties of vowels and /l/s in the MexicanAmerican English dialect in Chicago which I call MACE (Mexican-American Chicago
English) and compare them to those of Los Angeles Chicano English or LACE (also
known as Chicano English or CE) and White Chicago English (or WCE). I will point out
similarities and differences in their “phonetic grammars” and will look specifically at the
system of linguistic performance in the vernacular speech of MACE. I will present,
13
describe, and characterize a number of important aspects of the phonetic structure, in
particular the acoustic properties of vowels and /l/, in four speakers of MACE. I will then
compare these descriptions and characterizations with sound changes associated with
Chicago (The Northern Cities Chain Shift) and similar findings for a Mexican-American
dialect in LA, LACE and a Standard white mainstream local Chicago dialect, WCE. My
findings will lend support or be used to test the idea that Mexican-Americans, are
dialectally uniform in LA and Chicago. My data will also either back or contest William
Labov’s claims that Mexican-American speakers, as a non-mainstream, non-white
minority, do not participate in the new patterns of regional sound changes. In addition, I
am interested in determining whether specific features or characteristics of LACE that are
not present in WCE do surface in MACE as this would might suggest nation-wide sound
changes characteristic of Mexican-American English.
INTRODUCTION TO STUDY, PROCEDURE AND METHODSThis study documents surface phonetic forms for vowels and /l/s in the fluent vernacular
speech of four Mexican-American Chicago English speakers. Fluent vernacular speech is
an informal style of speech in which the speaker is focused on the content of what they
are saying rather than on the manner in which they are saying it. Thus “the speaker is
caught up in what he or she is saying, and pays little attention” to phonological or
grammatical form (Veatch 1991: 106). Fluent vernacular speech is hard to obtain for a
research study. Asking participants to recite certain words or answer short questions is
not an appropriate manner of eliciting informal speech because it usually introduces self-
14
correction, sometimes referred to as “hypercorrection”, and thus does not reflect regular
phonetic conditioning.
To achieve informal speech, I conducted three semi-structured interviews with
each of my four participants, which ranged from forty to one-hundred and twenty minutes
each. The interviews were designed to make participants comfortable. It is socially
adaptive, not only to develop competence in multiple dialects but also to develop the
ability to judge in which context/s it is appropriate to use each of these dialects; in many
contexts it may be accepted to use a mixture of dialects. In my interviews, I aimed not to
attach any judgment to any dialect so that my speakers would be comfortable enough to
display whatever dialect came naturally in each particular context. I did this by asking
initial questions but making the focus of the interviews on follow-up questions that were
based on whatever seemed to invoke the most interest and/or passion in the interviewees.
Two of the interviews’ initial questions were about participants’ political ideologies,
values and morals. In the third interview, I asked participants to relate their life histories
and only interrupted to encourage my interviewees to elaborate. After having participants
sign release forms, I recorded the interviews with a Sony ICD-SX25 digital tape recorder.
As the interviews were originally conducted for a study on culture and political ideology,
participants were unaware that I was interested in their speech patterns in addition to the
content of the interviews.
I found my participants through social networking. I chose to work with a sample
of young adult speakers because they are the most likely age group to be the leaders of
innovative sound change within their speech communities (Labov 1994: 156), although
one of my speakers was middle-aged. Two of the speakers are male and two are female.
15
Although females have been found to be the leaders in sound changes (Labov 1990), I
decided to use two men and two women for variety and for comparative purposes. Also,
it is not that men do not exhibit sound changes. Rather, females are generally more
advanced in these changes earlier than males (Labov 1990).
Two of the speakers are from lower socio-economic backgrounds. One is from a
working/middle class background and the fourth is from a middle/upper class
background. All four of the participants are first generation Mexican-Americans born
and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Each participant lives in a different neighborhood in the
city: Little Village, Logan Square, Lincoln Park and Back of the Yards. Pat Doez is a 45year-old female. She grew up in Back of the Yards but has lived in Lincoln Park since
college. She is of middle/high socio-economic class. Josefina Reséndez is a 19-year-old
female. She grew up in Logan Square but is currently a sophomore in college at Pomona
College in Southern California. However, she resides in Logan Square during vacations
from school. She is of working/middle class. John Williams is a 25-year-old male. He
grew up and currently lives in Little Village although he attended college in Boston and
lived there for four years. He is of lower socio-economic class. Pedro Risky is an 18year-old male. He lives in Back of the Yards although he attended middle and highschool in different parts of the city including Lincoln Park. He is of lower socioeconomic class.
Although four is a small sample size, this thesis is a qualitative descriptive
analysis of each speaker’s vowel inventory and /l/ usage rather than a quantitative
description of a few phonological patterns in a large number of speakers. This is
important because the little work that has been published on Mexican-American English
16
in the Midwest has not gone into this much depth and tends to focus on specific
phonological features or patterns instead of describing an entire inventory. One positive
aspect of looking at the vowel inventory of these speakers is that it will give the observer
the ability to understand the complexity of dialect formation. Quantitative dialect studies
run the risk of picking and choosing features that exhibit or lack a specific desired aspect
of another dialect and then conflating or distinguishing the two. In reality, it is often not
this simple. While Dialect A might share some features with Dialect B, Dialect A may
also exhibit other features that are extremely distinctive from Dialect B. A qualitative
description will highlight similarities as well differences, thus allowing for a more
complex analysis.
After conducting the interviews I transferred the recordings to a computer and
used Sony Digital Voice Editor 2 to replay the recordings as I typed transcriptions of
each interview in Microsoft Word Documents. Based on my auditory transcriptions of
the interviews, I chose five tokens for each monophthongal vowel in a stressed context.
To obtain vowel measurements, I isolated each vowel visually and auditorially with the
sound cut function in Praat, a software tool for acoustic analysis. I placed the cursor at
the middle of the steady state portion of each vowel based on visual and auditorial
inspection of the spectrogram of the vowel in Praat. I then obtained measurements for
formants 1 and 2 of each vowel by using the “get first formant” and “get second formant”
functions in Praat.
I also examined intervocalic /l/ in my participants in a similar manner. Based on
auditory perception of the interviews I chose five tokens in which /l/ occurs wordinitially, “like”, five in which /l/ occurs word-medially, “really” and five in which /l/
17
occurs word-finally, “all.” To obtain formant measurements I isolated each /l/ visually
and auditorially with the sound cut function in Praat. I recorded the duration of each /l/
by subtracting the start time from the finish time of each /l/. I placed the cursor at the
middle of the steady state portion of each /l/ based on auditorial and visual inspection of
the spectrogram of the /l/ in Praat and obtained measurements for formants 1 and 2 of
each /l/ using the “get first formant” and “get second formant” functions in Praat.5
DATA
Vowel Plots6 Speaker 1: John Williams, male, 25 7
Token of vowels:
caret vowel or stressed schwa vowel- ‘much,’ ‘comes,’ ‘another,’ ‘some,’ ‘some’
lax-high front I- ‘pick,’ ‘musician,’ ‘picked,’ ‘difficulties,’ ‘since’
high back u- ‘two,’ ‘two,’ ‘students’,’ ‘students,’ ‘issues’
high front i- ‘teach,’ ‘needs,’ ‘even,’ ‘these,’ seem’
lax mid front E- ‘met,’ ‘affects,’ ‘ahead,’ ‘prevent,’ ‘when’
tense low front ae- ‘that,’ ‘halves,’ ‘dissatisfaction,’ ‘happening,’ ‘can’
central low a- ‘not,’ ‘not,’ ‘not,’ ‘commentators,’ ‘commentators’
front mid e- ‘name,’ ‘neighborhood,’ ‘neighborhood,’ ‘neighborhood,’ ‘state’
back mid o- ‘though,’ ‘show,’ ‘those,’ ‘quoting,’ ‘focus’
lax high back U- ‘would,’ ‘good,’ ‘woulda,’ ‘would,’ ‘woulda’
dark blue- mid low back aw- ‘thought,’ ‘thought,’ ‘thought,’ ‘thought,’ ‘taught’
5
See appendices for an example of a transcript with tokens highlighted as well as an example of the data
for these tokens.
7
Participants chose their own pseudonyms under the instruction to pick two names of their choice.
18
Vowel Plot for John Williams
ʌ vowel or stressed vow
carat
I
lax high front I
u
high back u
i
high front i
ɛ
lax mid front E
æ
tense low front ae
ɑ
central
low a
e
front mid e
o
mid back o
ʊ high back U
lax
ɔ low back aw
tense
800
750
700
/ɑ/
/æ/
650
F1
600
/ɔ/
550
/ε/
/^/
500
/o/
/I/
450
/e/
/U/
400
/u/
/i/
350
300
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
2200
F2
John Williams’ /æ/ is low and front as it should be according to IPA vowel distribution.
It is not raised. His /ɑ/ is low and central. His /ɔ/ is lowered and backed. Interestingly,
his /ɔ/ is more back than his /u/. Some of his /u/ tokens are fronted. His /ɑ/ and /ɔ/
spaces do not overlap at all. John Williams’ /ɛ/ is backed and his /ʌ/ is raised. His /I/ is
high but is slightly backed. The difference between the highest F2 measurement for in
his /ɛ/ space and the lowest F2 measurement in his /ɑ/ space is about 400 Hz. The
difference between the lowest F2 measurement in his /ɛ/ space and the highest F2
measurement in his /ɑ/ space is about 20 Hz.
19
Speaker 2: Pat Doez, female, 45
Token of vowels:
caret vowel or stressed schwa vowel- ‘much,’ ‘judge,’ ‘judge,’ ‘some,’ ‘something’
lax-high front I- ‘dissatisfied,’ ‘traditional,’ ‘dissatisfied,’ ‘independence,’ issues’
high back u- ‘true,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘huge,’ ‘huge,’ ‘huge’
high front i- ‘even,’ ‘be,’ ‘see,’ ‘people,’ ‘beliefs’
lax mid front E- ‘guess,’ ‘Mexico,’ ‘Mexican,’ ‘Mexican,’ ‘guess’
tense low front ae- ‘satisfied,’ ‘have,’ ‘have,’ ‘haves,’ ‘ask’
central low a- ‘gotten,’ ‘population,’ ‘bothers,’ ‘lot,’ ‘stopped’
front mid e- ‘say,’ ‘raised,’ ‘raised,’ ‘racial,’ ‘racism’
back mid o- ‘suppose,’ ‘only,’ ‘over,’ ‘low,’ so’
lax high back U- ‘good,’ ‘wouldn’t,’ ‘wouldn’t,’ ‘would’ve,’ ‘looking’
dark blue- mid low back aw- ‘law,’ ‘thought,’ ‘saw,’ ‘thought,’ ‘law’
20
Vowel Plot for Pat Doez
1200
1000
F1
carat
ʌ or stressed vow
I high front I
lax
u back u
high
i front i
high
ɛ mid front E
lax
æ low front ae
tense
ɑ
central
low a
e mid e
front
o back o
mid
ʊ high back U
lax
ɔ
tense
low back aw
/ɑ/
1100
/ɛ/
/æ/
/o/
900
/ʌ/
/ɔ/
800
/ʊ/
/ɪ/
700
/e/
/i/
/u/
600
500
1350
1450
1550
1650
1750
1850
1950
2050
2150
2250
F2
Pat Doez’s /æ/ space is large. The whole space is front and a few tokens are raised as
they overlap with her /i/ space. Her /ɑ/ is low and central. Her /ɔ/ is slightly fronted.
Interestingly, like John Williams, Pat Doez’s /ɔ/ is more back than her /u/. This
difference is more extreme in her case than in John Williams’ to the point that her /u/
space overlaps with her front vowels. Her /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ spaces are completely separate. Pat
Doez’s /ɛ/ is backed slightly and is merged with her /æ/. Her /ʌ/ is fronted to central
position above her /ɑ/. Some of her /I/ tokens are raised. In general, her /I/ is high and
slightly backed. The difference between the highest F2 measurement in her /ɛ/ space and
the lowest F2 measurement in her /ɑ/ space is about 400 Hz. The difference between the
21
lowest F2 measurement in her /ɛ/ space and the highest F2 measurement in her /ɑ/ space
is about -25 Hz.
Speaker 3: Pedro Risky, male, 18
Token of vowels:
caret vowel or stressed schwa vowel- ‘country,’ ‘country,’ ‘money,’ ‘country,’‘country’
lax-high front I- ‘things,’ ‘things,’ ‘things,’ ‘different,’ ‘things’
high back u- ‘too,’ ‘too,’ ‘two,’ ‘two,’ ‘do’
high front i- ‘mean,’ ‘need,’ ‘media,’ ‘he,’ ‘people’
lax mid front E- ‘guess,’ ‘Mexico,’ ‘better,’ ‘instead,’ ‘better’
tense low front ae- ‘satisfied,’ ‘satisfied,’ ‘naturally,’ ‘satisfied,’ ‘outstanding’
central low a-‘obviously,’ ‘opportunity,’ ‘opportunities,’ ‘opportunities,’ ‘responsibility’
front mid e- ‘say,’ ‘amazing,’ ‘say,’ ‘places,’ ‘pay’
back mid o- ‘going,’ ‘low,’ ‘going,’ ‘focused,’ ‘going’
lax high back U- ‘putting,’ ‘good,’ ‘good,’ ‘good,’ ‘looking’
dark blue- mid low back aw- ‘offered,’ ‘offered,’ ‘offered,’ ‘thought,’ ‘taught’
22
Vowel Plot for Pedro Risky
950
850
ʌ or stressed vow
carat
I
lax high front I
u back u
high
i front i
high
ɛ mid front E
lax
æ low front ae
tense
ɑ
central
low a
e mid e
front
o back o
mid
ʊ high back U
lax
ɔ low back aw
tense
/ɔ/
750
/ɑ/
/o/
/ʌ/
/æ/
F1
650
550
450
/ɛ/
/ʊ/
350
/u/
/I/
/e/
/i/
250
950
1150
1350
1550
1750
1950
2150
2350
2550
F2
Pedro Risky’s /æ/ is slightly fronted and it is raised; a few of his tokens do overlap with
his /I/. His /ɑ/ is fronted slightly. His /ɔ/ is lowered. Interestingly, like John Williams
and Pat Doez, Pedro Risky’s /ɔ/ is more backed than his /u/. Pedro Risky’s /u/ space is
quite large. However, the token which is furthest back in his /u/ space is still not as far
back as some of his tokens of /ɔ/ and /o/. His /u/ and / ʊ/ are merged and are both
fronted. His /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ spaces are completely separate. His /ɛ/ is central and is thus
backed. It is almost completely merged with his /ʌ/ which is central. His /I/ is high and
backed slightly. The difference between the highest F2 measurement in Pedro Risky’s /ɛ/
space and the lowest F2 measurement in his /ɑ/ space is about 320 Hz. The difference
23
between the lowest F2 measurement in his /ɛ/ space and the highest F2 measurement in
his /ɑ/ space is about -70 Hz.
Speaker 4: Josefina Reséndez, female, 19
Token of vowels:
caret vowel or stressed schwa vowel- ‘just,’ ‘just,’ ‘stuff,’ ‘much,’ ‘much’
lax-high front I- ‘issue,’ ‘big,’ ‘big,’ ‘kids,’ ‘things’
high back u- ‘sooner,’ ‘news,’ ‘news,’ ‘newspapers,’ ‘news’
high front i- ‘needed,’ ‘see,’ ‘teenagers,’ ‘seems,’ ‘needed’
lax mid front E- ‘attention,’ ‘everything,’ ‘everywhere,’ ‘everything,’ ‘especially’
tense low front ae- ‘that,’ ‘ask,’ ‘happening,’ ‘actors,’ ‘actresses’
central low a- ‘stop,’ ‘shocking,’ ‘job,’ ‘job,’ ‘got’
front mid e- ‘main,’ ‘pay,’ ‘stay,’ ‘day,’ ‘stay’
back mid o- ‘ mostly,’ ‘going,’ ‘only,’ ‘grow,’ ‘smoking’
lax high back U- ‘should,’ ‘would,’ ‘would,’ ‘look,’ ‘looking’
dark blue- mid low back aw- ‘laws,’ ‘taught,’ ‘thought,’ ‘saw,’ ‘thought’
24
VowelPlot
Plot
for
Josefina
Reséndez
Vowel
for
Josefina
Reséndez
1000
900
carat
ʌ or stressed v
laxI high front I
u back u
high
i front i
high
laxɛ mid front E
æ low front ae
tense
ɑ
central
low a
e
front mid e
o
mid back o
laxʊhigh back U
ɔ low back aw
tense
/ɑ/
/æ/
800
F1
/ɔ/
700
600
/ʌ/
/o/
/ɛ/
/ʊ/
/u/
500
400
950
1150
1350
1550
/e/
1750
1950
/I/
2150
/i/
2350
2550
2750
F2
Josefina Reséndez’s /æ/ is not raised although some of her tokens of it are. Her /ɑ/ is low
and central. Her /ɔ/ is low and fronted. Interestingly, like John Williams, Pat Doez, and
Pedro Risky, Josefina Reséndez’s /ɔ/ is more backed than her /u/, making her /u/ fronted
to the point that it is central in her vowel space. Her /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ spaces are completely
separate. Her /ɛ/ is backed to central position and is partly merged with her /ʌ/ but it is
not lowered. Her /I/ is high and front. The difference between the highest F2
measurement in Josefina Reséndez’s /ɛ/ space and the lowest F2 measurement in her /ɑ/
space is about 515 Hz. The difference between the lowest F2 measurement in her /ɛ/
space and the highest F2 measurement in her /ɑ/ space is about 45 Hz.
25
/l/ Data and AveragesSpeaker 1, John WilliamsDuration 8
.093232
.027634
.040516
.03699
.048255
Avgs. .05
‘really-’ Duration
.020383
.027503
.028243
.019295
.032994
Avgs. .06
‘all-’
Duration
.028028
.032777
.022347
.032487
.050485
Avgs. .032
‘like-’
F1 Hz
832.5081
633.3324
730.7947
502.6705
606.2992
661
F1 Hz
382.5999
406.1460
386.2972
480.3213
370.8815
405
F1 Hz
623.1457
616.9569
628.6675
652.1481
498.0325
604
Speaker 3, Pedro RiskyF2 Hz
1955.1614
1254.0831
1859.7588
1319.5101
1732.5708
1624
F2 Hz
1912.9688
1977.3224
1936.8831
1404.7127
1812.2616
1809
F2 Hz
1226.2804
885.8160
1157.5710
1043.0953
1368.9564
1136
Speaker 2, Pat Doez‘like-’
Duration
.043822
.051235
.055497
.041483
.050233
Avgs. .048
‘really-’ Duration
.044202
.075029
.044562
.069381
.056264
Avgs. .058
‘all-‘
Duration
.074858
.125439
.02882
.058226
.04368
Avgs. .07
8
Duration
.036195
.038125
.030895
.041864
.046119
.04
Duration
.049618
.056995
.043707
.056428
.055641
.054
Duration
.093484
.086819
.127108
.056484
.106486
.096
F1 Hz
700.4624
571.5806
713.1099
745.6376
755.4201
697
F1 Hz
427.0116
438.6253
449.4808
450.1023
507.9799
455
F1 Hz
585.5666
642.5425
505.5912
683.6845
618.7411
608
F2 Hz
1649.4228
1539.9257
1580.6681
1713.4995
1655.1213
1628
F2 Hz
1605.2576
1616.6143
1684.6458
1526.0024
1382.4836
1563
F2 Hz
1164.0938
1074.6998
1118.6063
1251.4042
1017.5921
1125
Speaker 4, Josefina ReséndezF1 Hz
941.7553
797.9793
783.8049
941.4011
729.3729
839
F1 Hz
757.9905
934.9064
718.4888
847.8814
766.7285
805
F1 Hz
786.2267
859.6432
918.0865
906.8488
987.5203
892
F2 Hz
1804.4406
2067.3549
1656.7300
1806.6762
1545.0344
1776
F2 Hz
1829.1779
1682.9106
2093.8364
1571.2792
1500.9016
1736
F2 Hz
1657.6996
1444.7608
1638.0576
1714.0854
1725.0994
1636
Duration F1 Hz
.031191
771.6801
.132378
939.9382
.032798
618.3021
.045669
684.1855
.049844
539.4609
.058
711
Duration F1 Hz
.074653
439.0303
.069728
540.5351
.055598
561.9030
.031251
435.2786
.043939
528.6177
.054
501
Duration F1 Hz
.056853
551.9564
.074596
485.2142
.15047
720.6708
.055805
681.3611
.038395
537.7138
.04
538
F2 Hz
1619.9096(pn)
2125.3190
1520.7328
1948.1005
1914.8668
1826
F2 Hz
1874.7913
2006.7560
1983.4227
1724.1012
1867.4922
1891
F2 Hz
1387.1456
1355.7865
1240.9783
1286.4165
1320.0506
1320
All durations are in seconds
26
Averages for /l/s of all speakersDuration (sec)
F1 Hz
F2 Hz
‘like’
.049
727
1714
‘really’
.057
542
1750
‘all’
.06
661
1304
EMPIRICAL COMPARISONS AND DISCUSSIONAccording to William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg’s “Phonological Atlas of
North American English” website, the Northern Cities Chain Vowel Shift is “found
throughout the industrial inland North and [is] most strongly advanced in the largest
cities: Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Flint, Gary, Chicago,
Rockford” (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 1997). 9 The shift consists of six stages:
(1) /æ/ raises to the height of /I/
(2) /ɑ/ moves forward to position of /æ/ in other dialects
(3) /ɔ/ lowers to the position formerly occupied by /ɑ/
(4) /ɛ/ moves down and back to the position of / ʌ/ other dialects
(5) /ʌ/moves back to the position of /ɔ/other dialects
(6) /I/ moves back in parallel to the movement of /ɛ/
9
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4.html#Heading4 . Emphasis added to Figure 1.
27
MACE Speakers’ participation in 6 staged NCS Shift based on visual perception of vowel plots
Northern
Cities
Features
Speaker
1-JW
Speaker
2-PD
Speaker
3-PR
Speaker
4-JR
Some
/ʌ/backing /I/ backing
and
lowering
Yes
Some
Yes
No
Some
Yes
Some
Yes
Yes
Yes
Some
No
Some
Yes
Yes
No
Some
No
No
Yes
/æ/
/ɑ/fronting /ɔ/lowering
raising
/ɛ/ backing
and lowering
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Some
/ɑ/ /ɔ/
Separation
Speaker 1, JW participates in steps 2, 4 (somewhat), 5, and 6 (somewhat) of the NCS
Speaker 2, PD participates in steps 1,2, 4 (somewhat), 5, and 6 (somewhat) of the NCS
Speaker 3, PR participates in steps 1, 2, 3, 4 (somewhat), and 6 (somewhat) of the NCS
Speaker 4, JR participates in steps 1 (somewhat), 2 and 4 of the NCS
The advancement of the Northern Cities Vowel Chain Shift in speakers can also be
measured relatively by the alignment of the front-back positions of /ɛ/ and /ɑ/, the
backing and lowering of /ɔ/ and / ʌ/, and the distance between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/.
Alignment of /ɛ/ and /ɑ/ in MACE SpeakersAccording to Labov, Ash, and Bloberg one of the most effective measures of the
existence and degree of development of the Northern Cities shift “capatilizes on the fact
that stages 2 and 4 move the short vowels /ɛ/ and /ɑ/ in opposite directions. As /ɑ/ is
fronted and /ɛ/ is backed, the F2 distance between them declines.” 10 The second formant
of /ɛ/ minus the second formant of /ɑ/ in Chicago speakers was between 200 and 375
10
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NationalMap.html#Heading6
28
Hz. 11 In the map below, the differences in this alignment are broken down into six
ranges and regions in the US are categorized according to these ranges 12 :
When I subtracted the lowest second formant of each /ɑ/ token from the highest second
formant of each /ɛ/ token, the four MACE speakers in my study ranged from about 320515 Hz. When I subtracted the highest second formant of each /ɑ/ token from the lowest
second formant of each /ɛ/ token, the four MACE speakers in my study ranged from about
-70-45 Hz. This puts MACE speakers within the first four ranges of the map above.
Interestingly, speakers 1, 2, and 3 ranged from about 320-400 on the high end and -70-20
on the low end which would put them in the two lowest ranges of the map above and
would be relatively consistent with Labov, Ash, and Boberg’s findings on Chicago
speakers. Speaker 4, Josefina Reséndez had the largest range from her high end to her
low end, about 45-515 Hz. The low end of her range is consistent with the Chicago area
11
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/MapsIN/TelsurIN_eo.html
Labov, Ash, and Boberg use the ‘e’ to indicate the vowel sound in the word ‘bet’ and ‘o’ to indicate the
vowel sound in the word ‘cod.’
12
29
but the high end is consistent with the LA area. At the time of her interviews, Josefina
Reséndez was a sophomore at Pomona College in Claremont, California which is located
in the LA area. It is possible that two years in California had an affect on the positioning
of her vowels.
The distance between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ -
As noted in the map above, /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ are distinct spaces in standard Chicago speakers.
All four MACE speakers also exhibited this distinction; their /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ spaces did not
overlap in any places.
MACE COMPARISONS WITH CHICAGO WHITE ENGLISH VOWEL PLOTS
(Veatch, 1991: 205-207)Speaker 1, John Williams and Speaker 3, Pedro Risky vs. Jim (Chicago White
English Speaker)-
30
Jim
John Williams Pedro Risky
Features- F1 Hz F2 Hz F1Hz
/ʌ/
/I/
/u/
/i/
/ɛ/
/æ/
/ɑ/
/e/
/o/
/ʊ/
/ɔ/
F2Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
600
1200
550
1425
650
1575
525
425
425
575
1600
1050
1900
1450
475
375
375
525
1800
1550
2175
1775
550
375
450
600
1800
1600
2175
1600
550
700
1750
1450
650
675
1775
1550
650
725
1750
1450
500
1800
475
2050
475
1950
575
1100
475
1300
650
1175
525
1150
450
1400
450
1600
675
1100
600
1200
750
1250
Similarities:
• Jim and PR both participate in /æ/ raising, stage 1 of the NCS
•
Jim, PR, and JW all participate in /ɑ/ fronting, stage 2 of the NCS
•
Jim, PR, and JW all participate in /ɛ/ backing, stage 4 of the NCS
•
•
Jim and JW both participate in /ʌ/ backing, stage 5 of the NCS
Jim, JW, and PR all participate in /I/ backing, stage 6 of the NCS
31
Differences:
•
•
Jim and JW’s /ʌ/’s are more backed PR’s which is stage 5 of the Northern
Cities Shift.
Jim’s /I/ and /e/ are not as fronted as JW’s and PR’s. However, his /i/ is not as
fronted either.
Jim’s /u/ is not fronted like JW’s and PR’s.
•
•
Jim’s /ɛ/ is slightly more back than JW’s and PR’s.
Jim’s /o/ is lower than PR’s and JW’s and is more back than JW’s.
•
Jim’s /ʊ/ is not as fronted as PR’s and JW’s. PR and JW’s front vowels are
•
also more fronted but not as extremely as their /u/ and /ʊ/.
JW does not participate in /æ/ raising while Jim and PR do.
•
Jim and PR participate in /ɔ/ lowering, stage 3 of the NCS, while JW does not.
•
32
Speaker 2, Pat Doez vs. Judy (Chicago White English Speaker)-
Judy
Features/ʌ/
/I/
/u/
/i/
/ɛ/
/æ/
/ɑ/
/e/
/o/
/ʊ/
/ɔ/
Pat Doez
F1 Hz
F2 Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
775
1600
825
1675
500
400
375
750
2050
1700
2500
1900
700
725
750
950
1950
2000
2100
1900
650
950
2200
1800
900
1150
1875
1700
550
2400
725
2000
625
1400
925
1500
500
1750
750
1625
1025
1600
850
1550
33
Similarities:
• Judy and PD both participate in /æ/ raising, stage 1 of the NCS
•
Judy and PD both participate in /ɑ/ fronting, stage 2 of the NCS
•
Judy and PD both participate in /ɛ/ backing, stage 4 of the NCS
•
•
Judy and PD both participate in /ʌ/ backing, stage 5 of the NCS.
Judy and PD both participate in /I/ backing, stage 6 of the NCS.
Differences:
.
• PD’s front vowels are not as fronted as Judy’s
• Judy’s /u/, although fronted slightly is not fronted like PD’s, which is
extremely fronted.
•
•
PD’s /ɛ, /æ/, /o/, /ʊ/’s are lower than Judy’s.
PD does not participate in /I/ lowering, part of stage 6 of the NCS while Judy
does.
•
PD does not participate in /ɔ/ lowering, stage 3 of the NCS, while Judy does.
34
Speaker 4, Josefina Reséndez vs. Rita-
Rita
Features/ʌ/
/I/
/u/
/i/
/ɛ/
/æ/
/ɑ/
/e/
/o/
/ʊ/
/ɔ/
Josefina Reséndez
F1 Hz
F2 Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
650
1500
650
1750
500
450
400
700
2100
1650
2500
1800
500
550
500
600
2350
1650
2450
1850
600
950
2250
1600
750
850
1700
1650
525
2300
550
2250
625
1250
650
1200
525
1600
550
1900
825
1200
825
1450
35
Similarities:
• Rita and JR both participate in /æ/ raising, stage 1 of the NCS although Rita’s
participation is more extreme.
•
Rita and JR both participate in /ɑ/ fronting, stage 2 of the NCS
•
•
Rita and JR both participate in /ɛ/ backing, stage 4 of the NCS.
Rita and JR both have fronted /u/’s.
Differences:
.
•
•
Rita’s /ʌ/ is backed, stage 5 of the NCS while JR’s is not.
Rita’s /æ/ is more fronted while JR’s is central.
•
•
Rita’s /ʊ/ is not as fronted as JR’s.
JR does not participate in /I/ backing and lowering, stage 6 of the NCS while Judy
does.
•
Rita participates in /ɔ/ lowering, stage 3 of the NCS, while JR does not.
36
MACE COMPARISONS WITH LACE VOWEL PLOT (Veatch, 1991: 256)-
Vince
Features/ʌ/
/I/
/u/
/i/
/ɛ/
/æ/
/ɑ/
/e/
/o/
/ʊ/
/ɔ/
John Williams
Pat Doez
Pedro Risky Josefina Reséndez
F1 Hz
F2 Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
F1Hz
F2Hz
500
1400
550
1425
825
1675
650
1575
650
1750
425
375
375
475
1850
1300
2000
1600
475
375
375
525
1800
1550
2175
1775
700
725
750
950
1950
2000
2100
1900
550
375
450
600
1800
1600
2175
1600
500
550
500
600
2350
1650
2450
1850
525
625
1650
1350
650
675
1775
1550
900
1150
1875
1700
650
725
1750
1450
750
850
1700
1650
450
1950
475
2050
725
2000
475
1950
550
2250
450
1100
475
1300
925
1500
650
1175
650
1200
425
1500
450
1400
750
1625
450
1600
550
1900
650
1350
600
1200
850
1550
750
1250
825
1450
•
Vince’s /æ/ is well below his /o/ and his /ʌ/ while this is only true for John
Williams in the MACE speakers (NCS Stage 1)
•
Vince’s /ɑ/ is more back in his vowel space than any of the MACE speakers
(NCS Stage 2)
•
Vince’s /ɔ/ is at about the same height as his /ɑ/ and the two are merged
while this is not true for any of the MACE speakers (NCS Stage 3)
37
•
Vince’s /ɛ/ is relatively similar to the MACE speakers in that it is pretty
central and is thus backed (NCS Stage 4)
•
Vince’s /ʌ/ is relatively central like PR’s and JR’s, while PD’s and JW’s are
more backed (NCS Stage 5)
Vince’s /I/ is high and front and almost merged with his /i/, a feature
characteristic of Chicano English in Southern California (Fought 2003: 65).
Although JR’s /I/ is like Vince’s, the rest of the MACE speakers’ /I/’s are
backed (NCS Stage 6).
•
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS REGARDING /l/’S IN MACE SPEAKERSComparison of /l/’s in MACE vs. /l/ in American White EnglishIn general, there has not been much research published on exact measurements of the
acoustic properties of Chicano English speakers’ lateral approximants. There has,
however, been some study regarding the lateral approximant of white English speakers.
As a result, I will only be able to compare MACE speakers with these findings. In
American English, it is well established that there are two allophones of /l/, clear /l/ and
velar /l/. Velar /l/ occurs word-finally and clear /l/ occurs in all other contexts. 13 Mark
Huffman examined intervocalic /l/’s in the onset of syllables in eight native female
English speakers (Huffman 1997). I will compare the MACE female speakers’ /l/’s with
his findings and the MACE male speakers’ /l/’s with some of my own measurements of
the /l/’s of a native white male speaker of Chicago English.
T ABLE III . Midpoint formant values in Hz , pooled across eight speakers ;
standard deviations are in parentheses after means . Asterisk (*) marks C E l
items which showed significantly dif ferent formant values from the
comparable Cl item , as determined from ANOVA for pooled data
Word type , item F 1 at / l / mid F 2 at / l / mid F 2 -F 1 at / l / mid 14
CEl:
Cl : ‘beliefs’
384.1
1065
680.9
‘below’
417.1
1060.5
643.4
‘beloved’
432.6
1060
627.4
1029.6
519.5
‘galoshes’
510.1
13
This is not including syllabic /l/ which is sometimes treated as velar and sometimes treated as completely
separate from either clear of velar /l/.
14
(Huffman, 1997: 125)
38
According to the literature, the /l/’s in the table above are examples of the clear /l/
allophone of the English /l/. The velar /l/ allophone should theoretically have a higher F1
and a lower F2 than the clear /l/. My female speakers’ clear /l/’s found in the words
‘really’ and ‘like’ were clearer than Huffman’s speakers’ clear /l/’s. Pat Doez’s /l/’s in
‘like’ and ‘really’ had F1’s of 839 Hz and 805 Hz and F2s of 1776 Hz and 1736 Hz on
average. Josefina Reséndez’s /l/’s in ‘like’ and ‘really’ had F1’s of 711 Hz and 501 Hz
and F2s of 1826 Hz and 1891 Hz on average. In comparing these with Huffman’s results
it would be best to compare findings for ‘like’ with the word ‘galoshes’ and ‘really’ with
the word ‘beliefs’ as they contain the similar vowels after the onset /l/’s. In comparison,
the female MACE speakers’ /l/ in ‘like’ have F1’s that are between 200-300 Hz higher
than Huffman’s speakers’ /l/’s in ‘galoshes’ and F2’s that are about 800 Hz higher than
Huffman’s speakers’ /l/’s in ‘galoshes’. This indicates that the female MACE speakers’
onset /l/’s are much clearer than the female American English speakers in Huffman’s
study. The female MACE speakers’ /l/’s in ‘really’ have much higher F1’s that are
between about 150-400 Hz higher than the female speakers’ /l/’s in ‘beliefs’ and F2’s that
are between about 700-800 Hz higher than the female speakers’ /l/’s in ‘beliefs.’ Again,
the female MACE speakers’ onset /l/’s are much clearer than the female American
English speakers’ in Huffman’s study.
There does not seem to be much of a difference between the female MACE
speakers’ word-initial and intervocalic /l/’s. Their word-final /l/’s in ‘all’ have F1’s of
538 and 892 and F2’s of 1320 and 1636 on average. Although their F1’s are more or less
the same as those of their /l/’s in ‘like’ and ‘really,’ their F2’s are lower. However, they
are still higher than all the F2’s for the onset /l/’s of the female American English
39
speakers in Huffman’s study. This suggests that although female MACE speakers do
have two allophones of /l/ that follow the same phonological pattern as other American
English speakers, their /l/ phoneme in general is clearer than that of non-MexicanAmerican English speakers.
The same patterns found in the female MACE speakers were present in the male
MACE speakers. In addition to the four MACE speakers, I interviewed a middle-aged
white male from Chicago, Dirk Diggler. Below is a table comparing his /l/ averages with
those of John Williams and Pedro Risky:
/l/ Averages-
Dirk Diggler
John Williams
Pedro Risky
‘like-’ F1
F2
‘really-’F1
F2
‘all-’F1
F2
573
1280
509
1156
444
913
661
1624
405
1809
604
1131
697
1628
455
1563
608
1125
Here we see that Dirk Diggler’s formants are much lower than John Williams’ or Pedro
Risky’s for both word initial and intervocalic onset /l/ as well as word final /l/. The same
pattern noted in the females can be noted in the males. Their word final /l/’s all have
lower F2’s than their other /l/’s. While Dirk Diggler’s F1’s for his final /l/’s are lower
than his other two /l/’s the male MACE speakers’ F1’s for their final /l/’s are between the
F1’s of their intervocalic onset /l/’s and the F1’s for their word initial onset /l/’s.
However there is not a drastic difference in any of the F1’s in general as the difference is
only about 200 Hz at most while the difference in F2’s is about 700 Hz at most in the
MACE speakers. This suggests that the male MACE speakers, like the female MACE
speakers, have two allophones of /l/ that exhibit the same phonological pattern as other
40
American English speakers. Their /l/ phoneme in general, however, is clearer than that of
non-Mexican-American English speakers.
Although all four of the MACE speakers are native English speakers, it is possible
that the hyper-clarity of their /l/ phoneme in English results from their contact with
Spanish and therefore acts as a Mexican-American identity marker in their speech. This
came be noted through examination of average F1’s and F2’s for the Spanish /l/.
According to María Amalia García Jurado and Mónica Arenas in their book La Fonética
del Español, the formants for /l/ in Spanish on average for all speakers are around 400 Hz
for the F1 and 1850 for the F2 (Jurado and Arenas 2005: 108). The formants drop when
/l/ is followed by /u/. As this was not the case for ‘like,’ ‘really,’ or ‘all,’ MACE
speakers’ values can be compared with the original numbers which cover /ɑ/ and /i/. On
average, MACE speakers’ /l/’s F2’s fall somewhere between American English speakers’
/l/’s and Spanish speakers’ /l/’s. The F1’s seem to be slightly higher than both the
American English and Spanish averages in MACE speakers. This could be due to
background noise or other limitations.
LIMITATIONS, POSSIBLITY FOR FURTHER STUDY, AND CONCLUSIONSThus, while all of the MACE speakers participate in Stage 4, Vince seems to participate
in this stage as well to some extent. However, he does not participate in any of the other
stages while all of the MACE speakers participate in at least three of the NCS stages.
Another difference between the MACE speakers and Vince is that their /ɔ/and /ɑ/ spaces
are completely separate while Vince’s are merged. Three of the MACE speakers
participate in Stage 1 while Vince does not. Two of the MACE speakers participate in
Stage 5 while Vince does not. Like Vince, JR has a tense realization of /I/, which is a
41
characteristic feature of Chicano English in Southern California (Fought 2003: 65). This
could be due to JR’s residence in Southern California for the past two years as the other
three MACE speakers all have backed /I/’s. PR is the only MACE speaker to participate
in Stage 3 of the NCS. All of the MACE speakers /u/’s are fronted, especially, PD whose
/u/’s are even more fronted than Vince’s.
This is interesting because /u/ fronting is considered a feature of Anglo Los
Angeles English that is only exhibited by some Chicano English speakers (Fought 1999).
However, both female Chicago White English speakers also exhibit slight /u/ fronting
and the female MACE speakers’ /u/’s are more fronted than the males’. Perhaps /u/
fronting is spreading from the West to female speakers in other parts of the country. This
would not be surprising considering movies such as “Clueless” (1995) and “Mean Girls”
(2004) which have become popular in the last few years, especially among young white
girls. Considering this pattern, spread of the so-called ‘valley-girl’ accent among white
young girls is not unlikely.
Two of the MACE speakers participate in five of the NCS stages, one participates
in four and one participates in three. In comparison, Vince, the LACE speaker,
participates in only one of these stages while all of Veatch’s White Chicago English
speakers participate in all six of the NCS stages. Interestingly, the stages in which
MACE speakers participate vary per speaker. This could be due to a variety of factors,
such as socio-economic class, gender or age. It could also have to do with each speaker’s
self perception. While Pat Doez and Pedro Risky, participates in five of the NCS stages,
John Williams participates in four and Josefina Reséndez participates in three.
42
Pat Doez is the oldest speaker of the four MACE speakers. She is also of a
higher socio-economic class and is female. In addition, she lives in an area where there
are very few Mexican-Americans and a lot of Anglo-Americans. The other three
speakers live in areas populated more by non-white groups. In the case of Pedro Risky
and John Williams, their neighborhoods consist of mostly Mexican-Americans. Unlike
John Williams and Pedro Risky, however, Pat Doez is female. It is commonly accepted
that female speakers are usually the leaders in language change (Labov 1990).
Yet Josefina Reséndez is also a female MACE speaker and she only participates
in three of the NCS stages. This could be due to the fact that she is a college student in
Southern California and her speech has been influenced by speakers there. Also, Pedro
Risky, a male, participates in the same number of changes as Pat Doez. Another
explanation could be that speakers vary based on their location within Chicago. Both Pat
Doez and Pedro Risky are from a neighborhood called Back of the Yards and both have
had a lot of contact with people in Lincoln Park and other Anglo speakers from the
Northside of Chicago; Pat Doez lives in Lincoln Park currently and Pedro Risky attended
middle school in Lincoln Park. It would be interesting to know the neighborhoods of
Veatch’s Chicago White English Speakers as a point of comparison.
Another explanation could be that Pat Doez and Pedro Risky have never left
Chicago. This analysis makes numerical sense as Pat Doez, Pedro Risky and John
Williams were all interviewed in Chicago. Pat Doez and Pedro Risky grew up in
Chicago and have never lived elsewhere for an extended period of time. John Williams,
who participates in five of the NCS stages, lived in Boston while he attended college but
moved back to Chicago and has been living there for a few years since. Josefina
43
Reséndez participates in the lowest number of NCS stages and is currently living in
Southern California. This could be because she was interviewed in California after living
there for an extended period of time. In addition, the dialect in Southern California is
further from Chicago’s than Boston’s dialect.
Although Pat Doez and Pedro Risky each participate in five NCS stages, they are
not the same stages. Social factors such as gender, region of Chicago, socio-economic
class, age, and time spent outside of Chicago could account for differences in which
combination of the NCS stages each MACE speaker exhibits. All four of the speakers
participate in /ɑ/ fronting, Stage 2 of the NCS and /ɛ/ backing, Stage 4 of the NCS.
Interestingly, these are not the first stages of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift which
would make more sense if the shift actually progresses in order of the stages proposed by
Labov, Ash, and Boberg. Perhaps this assumption is due to the dated nature of the
evidence in many of the current studies and /ɑ/ fronting is now the first stage instead of
the second. As John Williams is the only speaker who does not participate in Stage 1 of
the NCS, another possibility is that this is due to his time spent in Boston. With regards
to all of the MACE speakers participation in Stage 4, maybe /ɛ/ backing is a feature of
Mexican-American English in general, since Vince, a speaker of LACE, exhibits this
feature as well. This would mean that /ɛ/ backing is salient to multiple identities for
MACE speakers as Chicagoans and as Mexican Americans and therefore does not
conflict.
One limitation of this thesis is that all of the data I used to compare against the
MACE speakers were taken over thirty years ago. Perhaps, in the past thirty years,
44
Chicago White English has shifted in a different way than predicted by the Northern
Cities Chain Shift. For a future study it would be interesting to conduct similar
interviews with Chicago White English speakers and LACE speakers so that comparisons
would not be dated. This would also solve two other limitations present in this study.
The first is that most of the previous studies to which I have referred are not based on
vernacular speech. The second is that there is only data from one male LACE speaker
considered. Perhaps, female LACE speakers and other LACE speakers would exhibit
different patterns. A larger sample size in general would be preferred, especially to
examine whether the speech of speakers who have spent long periods of time in other
regions of the United States, such as Josefina Reséndez or John Williams, is influenced.
Perhaps excluding speakers such as these could also be beneficial as it would limit
confounding variables. Finally, all of the data relied on visual inspection of spectrograms
to locate the proper position for the cursor to obtain Praat measurements. A more
systematic approach for locating the steady state portion of vowel and /l/ nuclei as well as
the onset and offset of lateral approximants would enhance the data. Background noise
in the interviews might have affected the spectrograms. Although informal interviews
were able to capture fluid vernacular speech better than a lab study would have, they
come with the limitation of unexpected background noise and/or problems with the
location of the speaker in relation to the tape recorder. Future studies would obtain more
accurate results even using informal interviews that were taped in environments free of
background noise.
45
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47
Appendix
EXAMPLE OF INTERVIEW WITH VOWEL AND /l/ TOKENS HIGHLIGHTED
Interview 1 with John WilliamsHP: Oh and also…did you have a pseudonym?
JW: Is it ok to pi1ck a a …musi2cian like1…doesn’t matter?
HP: Yeah…
JW: The thing is…if I pi31cked tha1t…it wou1ld sound too mu1ch like2 a normal
na1me…
HP: It’s fine…it doesn’t matter
JW: Mmmm…why no1t just…John Williams…he’s a very goo2d guitarist…
HP: Um…ok…so…um…so you’re born in Chicago
JW: Mmmhmmm
HP: And in general would you say you’re satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are
going in the US at this time and why?
JW: Hmmm…yeah…well, one I am dissatisfied…mmm…I know that (?) divided
into…two1…two2 ha2lfs…one is sorta what’s ha4ppening in my nei2ghborhood…in my
community…the dissatisfa3ction co2mes from…living here like my whole life and no2t
seeing any…really1 clear improvement…to the quality of life…for the people in this
nei3ghborhood…and uh…local schools and local high schools…um…are performing
sort of below average and…I have friends that tea1ch high school…in the nei4ghborhood
and…um…and the stu3dents’ nee2ds are no3t me1t…e3ven though1 the stu4dents
themselves sort of show2 the desire to…to learn…sort of the other thing is what’s going
on in the US as a whole…sort of…and…I am dissatisfied with…with…with the sta5te
not just like3 of, of, of…our country…but the state of…sort of anxiety…the state
of…uncertainty that…that the4se times has brought upon us…um…just um…it doesn’t
see5m…any…any country has been…sort of spared from…from the c-, from tho3se
consequences…and just what happened recently in London…that actually qui-…that
was…really2 distressing…//
HP://What happened in London (was very distressing)…?
(At this point RM comes into the kitchen where the interview is taking place to finish
cooking dinner. The noises of the pots and pans are quite loud in the background and JW
seems to get frustrated and distracted by this. Later in the interview the noise is
A1
48
obviously frustrating him too much to endure and JW asks his mother if she can cook
dinner once we have finished instead. RM responds that she cannot and that she is
almost done and the interview continues)
JW: Yeah…it was very, very distressing…because…it was sort of ano3ther…um, sort of
reminder…that thes-…we can’t afford to forget…um…what…you know…the
diffi4culties that lie ahea3d…and…as I was driving…to work and listening to NPR…he
had all1 sorts of um…of co4mmentators talk about what…you know…what are so4me
solutions…what are so5me things that…that ca5n be done to preve4nt these type of
attacks…and a lot of what they said was sort of an active citizenry…we need to have
people be…you know…aware…of their surroundings…and um…be able to have…you
know…communicate and tell authorities if there’s anything that looks suspicious…and
so it reminded me…that one…you know…and especially si5nce he had all2 these
co5mmentators talk about…and really3 say, you know I’m quo4ting…it’s not if, it’s a
matter of whe5n….you know they have these commentators saying…one after
another…um…so…I mean…what…my views are…at least matter fo5cus on…the
limits…or…the-…and how it affe2cts daily life for people…um…I’m not a person
that’s…I mean although…you know, I vote regularly…I’m not a person that, that hotly
debates political issues…and I guess from…from you know, what we talked about…sort
of the way my parents wou3lda looked at political issu5es…and they wou4ld look at ‘em
on not sorta necessarily party grounds…and they wou5lda looked at it more on sort of
ethical grounds…well, sort of the…sort of the greater anxiety and the great threat
that…that you know, these times have…have thrust upon us…make me look at it…not,
not so much from…sort of…from the proper…road to
take…because…one…um…although sort of the citizenry has…definite…sort of…guide
and need…to tell us…sort of um…its fears…its ideas on what’s the best way to take
it…um…or the best…way to solve this problem…what I’m more interested in…is…how
they’re gonna (?) with…the problems…from day to day…
HP: Ok…um…what do you think are the biggest problems in the US?
JW: A big problem is…a huge dependence on oil…and sort of the…the gas
prices…rising…and…um…and one, if it continues to rise…everything’s gonna be a lot
more expensive…and…I mean the whole trouble in-…in…I mean…sometimes really4
and it can’t be said enough…about…sort of the…the (threat that?) countries…are
under…domestic problems…once again sort of the…lack of um…funding for
education…the lack of…um…of sort of civic life…and…the lack of…I mean, I’m sure
it’s different from community to community but…from at least…in my community it’s
sort of…a lack of…of…it really is sort of a…a (tight?)…sort of uh…um…feeling of
belonging…
(RM yells something to her other son who is watching TV in the next room)
HP: So like…community feeling?
A2
49
JW: Yeah…yeah…
HP: So…//
JW://And that’s, I mean…one of the reasons I have that, that sort of need…that sort of
pressing need…is just…and it’s I’m sure only a part of it…um…sort of…growing up
with sort of my grandma’s stories about how people in her town lived…and although
times were difficult…although-…um…people still lived a very, very rich life…in many
other ways…just because they had many, many friends living together…and…I really5
look for that…
HP: Mmmhmm…um…how…how are things going for your family in this country?
JW: Mmmm…they’re going quite well…better than it goes for most immigrant
families…being able to study…like…attend a college…and…pursing our own
careers…um…
HP: Um…yeah, your sister…is at Dartmouth
JW: Mmmhmm
HP: And Luis is at Weslyan?
JW: Well he’s gonna be at UIC now
HP: Oh he’s gonna be at UIC
JW: Yeah
HP: And…what else…have you-…you guys have been to Mexico…
JW: Uh huh…
HP: How do you-…um…do you want to talk a little bit about your experience there?
JW: Yeah…I remember when I first went…I was maybe…four years old…my
grandfather on my dad’s side passed away…it was really, really fun to…nice for the first
time to know…what all3 my family was like4…and…everyone that was very, very
caring…and I was surprised that even though they never knew me before…just the fact
that I belong to their family…and just because they knew that they showed this sort
of…really, really great warmth…um…I really felt comfortable…I was sad to
leave…and…it’s a funny story cuz I was…I mean, I was excited to see a new
place…that-, at such an early age…being in México or being in any other
place…probably wouldn’t have had much of a difference besides the people that were
living there…but I was excited to see…what rural life was like5…to see…the
animals…you know, in the fields and…it’s a funny story…on the cab ride to…my
50 A3
family’s house…I would look out the window and say well…look at that rock…I’ve
never seen rocks this big!...you know, you’re from the city…I’d never seen…anything
like that…and the cab driver said…you’re amazed at that?...no…you should go and see
all4 the airplanes at the airport…that’s something that’s really, really amazing…we had
just come from there…you know…but getting older…and we visited…a couple
times…and…you know…I-,…every time I-…every subsequent time…we’d be-, sure…it
would be difficult to leave…because…you love the p-…you love your family
members…and…um…but you…you knew that…you know…it wasn’t your home…you,
you would miss your home…and…you would miss sort of…the way of life…you…sort
of…cultivate for yourself…and…
HP: Mmmhmm…so…ok…your parents are from Guadalajara…or…?
JW: Mmhmm…
HP: Ok…and then…um…I don’t know…this is kinda like…optional but…from your
experience there…how do you think Mex-,…how do you think things are going
Mexico…or what’s going on…politically…just in general?
JW: Well in Guadalajara…last time I visited…was a couple years ago…and…the city
was…was growing incredibly fast…and a lot of the…older…I mean, a lot of
the…surrounding towns…that…that used to be sort of what we’d consider sort of
suburbs…what I consider sort of…different…cities…or different little townships that
aren’t actually part of whol-,…the city as a whole…um…there seems to be…there
seemed to be enough work…but…the quality of life wasn’t, wasn’t very good…like
most, most people would…fall into to…sort of just barely mak-, the category of people
who barely make enough to…to make a living…um…I know this (?)…um…from
(community?) meetings…that sort of pollution is sort of…a terrible problem…in the
city…education once is again…is…is difficult there as well…a lot of parents try
to…enroll their children in English classes…or in computer classes in hopes that that
would give ‘em…sort of an edge in the work place…or the workforce…but…often times
education there isn’t…either one it isn’t enough…or isn’t, it isn’t…of that great
quality…or two the parents don’t have the means to…um have, have the child
study…and…and I guess the testament to that’s the large number of people who
are…opting to leave their homes…and to immigrate and come here…
HP: Mmm…um…what are your impressions when you hear the phrase good society…is
there anything that comes to mind?
JW: Mmm…the first thing that came to mind was a society that’s peaceful…a society
that…like one…for me I guess perhaps…it’s my interest…but a good society, a society
that’s culturally rich…like one that’s peaceful…um…that cares about sort of health…that
cares about…education…and because of you know…these assets…because of
these…these assets they can…you know, they can foster a really rich cultural
life…mmm…mmm….and sort of…I mean, a prerequisite for all5 this…is a society that’s
just…yeah…a society that really…has empathy and cares for…all of its members…
51 A4
A3 A1
A2
HP: Mmm…let’s see…what do you mean when you say “culturally rich”?
JW: Culturally rich?...sort of rich in the arts…you know…uh, a culture
that…enjoys…you know…music…that…you know…is…we’re…ready sort of the…the
fruits of culture are bountiful…there’s a lot of…um…you know, lots, lots of
examples…lots of music…you know…artwork…there’s this…well there’s a
diverse…sort of culture…just people are doing all sorts of interesting things and…there’s
one, the time and two…sort of…you know…the desire to partake in all that…
HP: Mmmhmm…um…growing up…besides the guitar was music a big part of your life
here…or…?
JW: Mmmhmm
HP: Like…dancing…or singing…or…?
JW: Not so much dancing for me…listening to music though…
HP: Listening?
JW: Lots of listening
HP: Is it…is it important to your parents too…?
JW: Music for them has a very, very-…I’m, I’m a lot more open with the music I listen
to…although my parents enjoy all sorts of different types of music, the music that they
grew up with…because it doesn’t have-…because the setting is different here…than the
music they grew up with…in México…and that’s the place it’s from…I think that…the
music…it has nostalgia…that the music has…that it doesn’t have for me…um…
52 A5
EXAMPLE OF DATA FROM PRAAT FOR VOWEL AND /l/ TOKENSData for John Williams’ vowel and /l/ tokensLike /l/sDuration
1- 7.440123-7.346891 = .093232
2- 14.908860-14.881226 = .027634
3- 148.575314-148.534798 = .040516
4- 584.652289-584.615299 = .03699
5- 628.708832-628.660577 = .048255
F Time (s)
7.405983
14.893441
148.561133
584.639674
628.682234
F1 Hz
832.5081
633.3324
730.7947
502.6705
606.2992
F2 Hz
1955.1614
1254.0831
1859.7588
1319.5101
1732.5708
Really /l/s- Duration
1- 93.671143-93.650760 = .020383
2- 182.735151-182.707648 = .027503
3- 253.816712-253.788469 = .028243
4-408.477417-408.458122 = .019295
5- 491.788410-491.755416 = .032994
F Time (s)
93.659433
182.721295
253,805280
408.470769
491.772059
F1 Hz
382.5999
406.1460
386.2972
480.3213
370.8815
F2 Hz
1912.9688
1977.3224
1936.8831
1404.7127
1812.2616
All /l/sDuration
1- 215.034962-215.006934 = .028028
2-251.442461-251.409684 = .032777
3- 583.788006-583.765659 = .022347
4- 652.173185-652.140698 = .032487
5-894.223223-894.172738 = .050485
F Time (s)
215.019966
251.428850
583.777134
652.156613
894.198218
F1 Hz
623.1457
616.9569
628.6675
652.1481
498.0325
F2 Hz
1226.2804
885.8160
1157.5710
1043.0953
1368.9564
/ʌ/
# FTime s
F1 Hz
1-14.758645 462.2400
2–87.141805 632.1218
3-195.594224 558.7138
4 –219.836378 489.2753
5-220.903773 526.4810
F2 Hz
1368.3536 (much)
1489.7977 (comes)
1446.2676 (another)
1443.7415 (some)
1532.1164 (some)
/I/
# FTime s
F1 Hz
1-5.301428 470.4552
2 –6.891673 447.7362
3 –13.380907 414.2219
4- 206.830042 463.9498
5- 250.854311 505.9721
F2 Hz
1869.2327 (pick)
1767.0985 (musician)
1928.9535 (picked)
1708.5112 (difficulties)
1713.9082 (since)
/u/
# FTime s
F1 Hz
1- 72.260747 376.0502
2- 73.542419 379.0300
3- 117.779434 375.0743
F2 Hz
1265.1392 (two)
1345.8563 (two)
1851.7364 (students’)
53
A6
4-120.608100 378.6465
5- 313.908941 386.6245
1599.9737 (students)
1507.4094 (issues)
/i/
# FTime s
F1 Hz
1-111.529785 364.8305
2-118.159667 379.5455
3-119.891552 385.6440
4-157.292077 378.8724
5- 164.788491 398.8166
F2 Hz
2317.5394 (teach)
2277.6261 (needs)
2176.7872 (even)
2034.5999 (these)
2247.3027 (seem)
/ɛ/
# FTime s
F1 Hz
1- 119.234347 481.8478
2- 287.946869 472.9357
3-208.275899 554.9768
4-222.827626 481.3841
5-259.206921 542.8773
F2 Hz
1761.8775 (met)
1803.6503 (affects)
1679.3753 (ahead)
1766.3898 (prevent)
1847.3359 (when)
/æ/
# FTime s
1-13.679355
2-73.785123
3-86.685893
4-78.237372
5-22.056737
F1 Hz
626.9494
656.7511
716.1272
632.5184
600.8695
F2 Hz
1921.4208 (that)
1875.7051 (halves)
1703.2435 (dissatisfaction)
1640.4023 (happening)
1852.7640 (can)
/ɑ/
# FTime s
1-30.869952
2-91.801666
3-118.838871
4-217.812959
5-251.737442
F1 Hz
628.7165
684.1384
661.5557
679.5745
705.4850
F2 Hz
1536.2358 (not)
1623.4981 (not)
1657.5911 (not)
1434.6730 (commentators)
1533.9440 (commentators)
/e/
# FTime s
1-15.542997
2-79.560690
3-98.485514
4-113.180814
5-144.679661
F1 Hz
508.6275
474.5463
463.7002
413.2298
449.7600
F2 Hz
2014.7225 (name)
2108.9716 (neighborhood)
2078.4440 (neighborhood)
2127.0009 (neighborhood)
2089.0567 (state)
/o/
# FTime s
F1 Hz
1-120.267730 438.2469
F2 Hz
1304.9964 (though)
54
A7
2-121.863898 442.1462
3-172.306300 425.2281
4-254.627970 508.0982
5- 278.164216 531.1704
1303.6526 (show)
1354.8220 (those)
1354.2593 (quoting)
1379.0950 (focus)
/ʊ/
# FTime s
1-13.928372
2-33.033288
3-113.608189
4-312.696818
5-314.305352
F2 Hz
1334.0029 (would)
1464.4450 (good)
1379.5351 (woulda)
1438.3837 (would)
1437.9505 (woulda)
F1 Hz
462.2090
384.7872
458.8652
493.4973
429.6511
/ɔ/
# FTime s
1-2448.350538
2-2459.585798
3-2495.152857
4-2549.624957
5-757.349162
F1 Hz
616.1054
701.5851
518.7691
598.2079
580.5416
F2 Hz
1414.3153 (thought)
1230.9173 (thought)
1309.6628 (thought)
1385.3609 (thought)
1077.0845 (taught)
A8
55