A multivariate spatial analysis of vowel formants in American English

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a multivariate spatial analysis of 38 vowel formant variables in the language of 402 informants from 236 cities from across the contiguous United States, based on the acoustic data from the Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2006). The results of the analysis both confirm and challenge the results of the Atlas. Most notably, while the analysis identifies similar patterns as the Atlas in the West and the Southeast, the analysis finds that the Midwest and the Northeast are distinct dialect regions that are considerably stronger than the traditional Midland and Northern dialect region indentified in the Atlas. The analysis also finds evidence that a western vowel shift is actively shaping the language of the Western United States.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2013.3
Divisions: ?? 53981500Jl ??
College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Centre for Language Research at Aston (CLaRA)
Additional Information: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013
Publication ISSN: 2049-7547
Last Modified: 26 Mar 2024 08:08
Date Deposited: 19 Aug 2019 10:15
Full Text Link: http://journals ... ine&aid=8992970
Related URLs:
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2013-06
Authors: Grieve, Jack (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-3630-7349)
Speelman, Dirk
Geeraerts, Dirk

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