GRIN | Your Knowledge Has Value | Publication of your thesis, essay, dissertation or term paper
Publish Your Paper Now
Homepage > Catalog > American Studies > Linguistics
Browse the ebook

A comparison of the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift in vowel pronunciation by American English speakers

American Studies - Linguistics


Author

Olivia Frey
24 Texts

Excerpt

Category
Scholary Paper (Seminar)
Institution / College
Grade
1,0

Introductory Seminar Linguistics (204)
Phonetics and Phonology
WS
2006/07
A
COMPARISON OF
THE
N
ORTHERN
C
ITIES
S
HIFT AND
THE
S
OUTHERN
S
HIFT
IN VOWEL PRONUNCIATION
BY
A
MERICAN
E
NGLISH SPEAKERS
Olivia Frey
Table of contents
1. INTRODUCTION ... 1
2. THE BASIC CHAIN-SHIFTING PRINCIPLE... 1
3. THE NORTHERN CITIES SHIFT ... 3
3.1. P
ATTERNS AND EFFECTS ON THE VOWEL SYSTEM
... 3
3.2. R
EGIONAL DISTRIBUTION
... 5
4. THE SOUTHERN SHIFT... 6
4.1. P
ATTERNS AND EFFECTS ON THE VOWEL SYSTEM
... 6
4.2. R
EGIONAL DISTRIBUTION
... 7
5. SYNOPSIS ... 9
6. CONCLUSION ... 10
REFERENCES ... 11
- 1 -
1. Introduction
Like all living languages, English is continually changing as new words,
pronunciations, grammatical structures and word meanings arise and eventually
supplement or replace old ones. This means that every linguistic branch, from
morphology and phonology to syntax and semantics is subject to change. In North
American English, pronunciation is the most active arena for language change. In the
last few decades, researchers have identified various pronunciation changes that are
in progress in different parts of the United States (Gordon 2001: 2-3).
Towards the end of the 20
th
century, William Labov, an American linguist,
overruled the methods of traditional dialectology depending on lexical variation and
claimed that "regional diversity is increasing as a result of opposing movements
within vowel systems" (Labov, Ash & Boberg 2005: 18). In other words, the divergent
developments in American English dialects are attributable to the operation of chain
shifts moving the phonetic values of vowels in radically different directions. In these
complex rotations, whole sets or subsystems of vowels reverse their relative
positions to each other, whereby phones representing one phoneme in one dialect
represent an entirely different phoneme in another (Labov 1991: 3).
2. The basic chain-shifting principle
Vowels can primarily be differentiated and classified according to the position of the
tongue during the production of a particular vowel. Furthermore, the respective
position of the tongue in the mouth can be represented in a four-sided diagram.
Within this vowel chart, each vowel has its own position, or "phonetic space",
determined by the position of the tongue (Roach 2000: 14-15). The concept of
phonetic space is of great importance in the context of chain shifting, because the
shift of one vowel from one position to another usually
sets off
a change in the
phonetic space of a neighboring vowel (Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 2006: 75).
As regards the general patterns of chain shifting, Labov (1994: 118-119)
distinguishes between "minimal chain shifts" and "extended chain shifts". Minimal
chain shifts only consist of a change in the position of two phonemes: the first, or the
"leaving element", changes its position, thereby leaving behind an empty space.
Consequently, a neighboring member, the "entering element", also changes its
Excerpt: 4 of 14 pages -  scroll top


Description

Title:
A comparison of the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift in vowel pronunciation by American English speakers
Event:
Introductory Seminar / Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology
Author:
Olivia Frey
Year:
2007
Pages:
14
Archive No.:
V93459
ISBN (eBook):
978-3-638-06535-1
ISBN (Book):
978-3-638-95194-4
DOI:
10.3239/9783638065351
File size:
176 KB
Language:
English

Tags:
Northern Cities Shift Southern American English Linguistics Phonetics Phonology

Quote paper:

Olivia Frey, 2007, A comparison of the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift in vowel pronunciation by American English speakers, Munich, GRIN Publishing GmbH

This text can be quoted and accessed from this url:

Embed

Copy the following code to embed the flash view of this text in a blog or website.

DOI

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a kind of ISBN for internet documents which guarantees that you find the text also if its internet address changes. You can find DOI-papers on http://www.doi.org/.

Similar texts

          

Comments

0 comments

Add comment

Your comment is reviewed before being published

Recent News

Olivia Frey's text A comparison of the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift in vowel pronunciation by American English speakers is now available as a printed book

on Friday, June 20, 2008 - 0 comments -

Olivia Frey has published the text A comparison of the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift in vowel pronunciation by American English speakers

on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - 0 comments -

Olivia Frey has uploaded a new text

on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 0 comments -
Show all...

How it works

Similar texts

     

Facebook

Newsfeed

Loading...

Show all...

Books on this topic

   

About us

Blog

Jobs

Contact

Press

Partners

Privacy


© 2008-2012 GRIN Verlag GmbH. E-Mail: info@grin.com - All content copyright restricted.
Copying and distribution prohibited. Terms and Conditions.

Free Publication:
Your term paper, essay, interpretation, bachelor thesis, master's thesis, dissertation or textbook: upload now!

AWEST2