LINGUIST List 15.45

Tue Jan 13 2004

Qs: Chicago Dialect; Ling Teaching Materials

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Directory

  • Rich Alderson, Query: Chicago suburban dialect developments?
  • Zohra Mimouni, Linguistics teaching material to college students

    Message 1: Query: Chicago suburban dialect developments?

     Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 20:48:40 -0500 (EST)
    From: Rich Alderson <mailalderson.users.panix.com>
    Subject: Query: Chicago suburban dialect developments?


    It has been very nearly 20 years since I moved away from the Chicago area, though I still visit family there from time to time. I certainly don't get much contact with suburban young people.

    On Monday evening, 5 January 2004, one of the contestants on the game show "Wheel of Fortune" was described as being from Oakbrook, which I remember as a western/southwestern suburb. This young woman, in general to my ear, had an idiolect which partook only mildly of the Northern Cities Chain Shift, except for the names of certain letters of the alphabet, those whose Network Standard names consist of IPA epsilon + nasal or fricative. Using <E> for IPA epsilon and <> for IPA turned-e ("shwa"), these were pronounced, quite emphatically:

    [En] => [n] [Em] => [m] [Ef] => [f] [Es] => [s]

    Was this idiosyncratic? Is this common to some group of speakers, more likely under the age of 25, in (some of) the suburbs of Chicago? More widely spread?

    Rich Alderson

    Message 2: Linguistics teaching material to college students

     Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 14:26:03 -0500 (EST)
    From: Zohra Mimouni <zmimounicmontmorency.qc.ca>
    Subject: Linguistics teaching material to college students


    I'll be teaching a Genereal Linguistics course to college students at the end of January. Do you know of any book(s) and/or any other teaching tools (CDs, movies, etc.)that would make this topic easier to learn (and to teach)?

    Thanks Zohra Mimoun, Ph.D. Montmorency College, Laval Canada