Abstract.....................................................................................................................................iii
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Thesis.........................................................................................1
1.0 Introduction..................................................................................................1
1.1 Statement of the Problem.............................................................................2
1.2 Purpose of the Study.....................................................................................3
1.3 Significance of the Study..............................................................................4
1.4 Limitations of the Study...............................................................................5
1.5 Overview of the Thesis................................................................................6
Chapter 2: Literature Review.....................................................................................................7
2.0 Introduction..................................................................................................7
2.1 Phonetic Literature.......................................................................................8
2.1.1 Introduction...................................................................................8
2.1.2 An Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Variation in New World English.
ErikThomas. (2001)...............................................................................9
2.1.3 “The three dialects of English.”
William Labov. (1991).........................................................................11
2.2 Phonological Literature..............................................................................14
2.2.1 Introduction.................................................................................14
2.2.2 African American Vernacular English.
John Rickford. (1999)...........................................................................14
2.2.3 “Some aspects of African-American Vernacular English
phonology”. Guy Bailey & Erik Thomas. (1998)................................16
2.3 Perceptual Literature..................................................................................18
2.3.1 Introduction.................................................................................18
2.3.2 Use of Black English and racial discrimination in urban housing
markets”. Douglas Massey & Garvey Lundy. (2001)..........................18
2.3.3 Testing listeners reactions to phonological markers of ethnic
identity. David Graff, William Labov & Wendell Harris. (1986).........20
2.4 Chapter Summary.......................................................................................21
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology........................................................................23
3.0 Research Goals...........................................................................................23
3.1 Hypothesis..................................................................................................24
3.2 Experimental Design..................................................................................25
3.2.1 Target data and collection tools...................................................25
3.2.2 Participant demographics............................................................28
iv
3.3 Methodology...............................................................................................28
3.3.1 Defining the acoustic phonetic variables.....................................29
3.3.2 Vowel duration.............................................................................30
3.3.3 Vowel quality...............................................................................33
3.4 Challenges to Analysis...............................................................................35
3.5 Chapter Summary.......................................................................................36
Chapter 4: Results....................................................................................................................37
4.0 Introduction................................................................................................37
4.1 Vowel Duration..........................................................................................37
4.1.1 Northern Cities Shift vowel duration..........................................38
4.1.2 African American English vowel duration..................................39
4.1.3 Interdialect comparison of vowel duration..................................41
4.1.4 Effects of consonant voicing on vowel length............................43
4.1.5 Summary of duration results.......................................................49
4.2 Vowel Quality.............................................................................................49
4.2.1 Northern Cities Shift vowel quality.............................................50
4.2.2 African American English vowel quality....................................52
4.2.3 Interdialect comparison of vowel quality:
Interaction of raised [ æ ] and front tense/lax vowels..........................53
4.2.4 Summary of quality results..........................................................56
4.3 Chapter Summary.......................................................................................56
Chapter 5: Conclusions............................................................................................................57
5.0 Introduction................................................................................................57
5.1 Summary of Results...................................................................................58
5.1.1 Summary of vowel duration........................................................58
5.1.2 Summary of vowel quality...........................................................59
5.2 Implications of the Results.........................................................................60
5.2.1 The relationship between [ æ ] and front tense/lax vowels........61
5.2.2 Vowel lengthening and consonant voicing..................................62
5.3 Chapter Summary.......................................................................................64
5.4 Directions for Future Research................................................................. 65
References................................................................................................................................66
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................68
Appendix A: Approval letter from the College of Arts and Sciences Human Subjects
Review Committee...........................................................................................75
Appendix B: Preliminary study..............................................................................................76
Appendix C: Word list, test items..........................................................................................79
Appendix D: Demographic questionnaire..............................................................................83
Appendix E: Vowel duration measurements..........................................................................84
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Average vowel duration of speakers of Northern Cities Shift (NCS).........................39
2 Average vowel duration of speakers of African American English (AAE).................40
3 Comparison of vowel duration in AAE and NCS........................................................42
4 Front tense/lax vowel lengths in AAE and NCS..........................................................45
5 Average vowel quality of NCS speakers by gender.....................................................84
6 Average vowel quality of AAE speakers by gender.....................................................84
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1 Illustration of vowel duration, waveform of the word “bead”.....................................31
2 Illustration of glottalization: spectrogram of the word “butt”......................................32
3 Illustration of F2 variability: [ a ] and [ i ]...................................................................34
4 Average length in milliseconds of vowels occurring before stop consonants
in AAE and NCS males....................................................................................47
5 Average length in milliseconds of vowels occurring before stop consonants
in AAE and NCS females.................................................................................48
6 Northern Cities Shift vowel chart................................................................................51
7 African American English vowel chart........................................................................52
8 Front tense/lax vowel quality in NCS..........................................................................54
9 Front tense/lax vowel quality in AAE..........................................................................55
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Average vowel duration of speakers of Northern Cities Shift (NCS).........................39
2 Average vowel duration of speakers of African American English (AAE).................40
3 Comparison of vowel duration in AAE and NCS........................................................42
4 Front tense/lax vowel lengths in AAE and NCS..........................................................45
5 Average vowel quality of NCS speakers by gender.....................................................84
6 Average vowel quality of AAE speakers by gender.....................................................84
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1 Illustration of vowel duration, waveform of the word “bead”.....................................31
2 Illustration of glottalization: spectrogram of the word “butt”......................................32
3 Illustration of F2 variability: [ a ] and [ i ]...................................................................34
4 Average length in milliseconds of vowels occurring before stop consonants
in AAE and NCS males....................................................................................47
5 Average length in milliseconds of vowels occurring before stop consonants
in AAE and NCS females.................................................................................48
6 Northern Cities Shift vowel chart................................................................................51
7 African American English vowel chart........................................................................52
8 Front tense/lax vowel quality in NCS..........................................................................54
9 Front tense/lax vowel quality in AAE..........................................................................55
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people assisted and supported me as I wrote this thesis, and I would like to
acknowledge them here.
I would first like to thank my committee, Beverely Goodman and Edward Garrett. I
thank Beverley for her vision and her generous support. In creating The Linguistics Lab at
EMU, Beverley provided a work space for the data collection and analysis of this thesis. I
also thank Beverley for her analytical insight and her skills as a writer. She has supported me
professionally and personally through every step of this thesis. Her guidance has been
invaluable to my development as a linguist. I thank Edward for having the courage to teach a
course devoted to African American English for the first time at EMU. His class brings
serious linguistic attention to a subject that is often misunderstood and, in doing so,
demonstrates how academic research may act as a positive force in our community. I would
also like to thank Edward for his creative thinking, honest criticism, and for lending me a
sweet computer to use during the course of my thesis.
I also give very special thanks to Karen Dykstra and her Fall 2008 LING 201 students
who volunteered as subjects in my experiment. I thank them all for their patience and humor
during the recording sessions.
Finally, I would like to thank Kevin for his positive impact on my work and, more
importantly, in my life.
Thank you all, so very much!
ii
ABSTRACT
In this thesis, I contribute acoustic phonetic data and analysis to the study of African
American English (AAE). For this research, I collected speech samples of self-identified
AAE speakers and speakers of a dominant coexisting dialect, the Northern Cities Shift
(NCS). I analyze these samples to determine if vowel quality and vowel duration are
consistently and predictably varied between the two dialects. Labov's Chain Shift Principles
are used as the context for the results.
In my analysis, I find that both vowel quality and duration are different between AAE
and NCS in ways previously undocumented in the linguistic literature. The quality analysis
relies on evidence from the vowel [ æ ]. I find that AAE shares a distinct quality feature of
NCS, raised [ æ ], despite the fact that this feature is said not to be present in AAE. This
vowel functions as the pivot point for the chain shift in the NCS data but does not cause a
vowel shift in AAE data analyzed in this thesis. In the analysis of vowel length, I rely on data
from the front tense/lax vowel pairs, [ i ; ] and [ e ; ] in both dialects. ɪ ɛ I find that vowel
length is consistently longer in AAE than in NCS. Additionally, I find that in NCS, the
tense/lax pairs maintain a difference in length in which the tense vowels are longer than the
lax vowels. In AAE, I find that the tense vowels are shorter than the lax vowels. I conclude
that the length differences found in these data sets indicate that Labov's feature
[ +/- peripheral ] is not a feature of the AAE front tense/lax vowel pairs, [ i ; ɪ ] and [ e ; ɛ ]
and that this prevents a vowel shift in AAE that should occur in response to the presence of
the raised [ æ ].
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