LINGUIST List 28.4420
Wed Oct 25 2017
Diss: English; Sociolinguistics; Phonetics: Elizabeth Coggshell: ''Short-a in the Sixth Borough: A Sociophonetic Analysis of a Complex Phonological System in Jersey City''
Editor for this issue: Sarah Robinson <srobinsonlinguistlist.org>
Date: 21-Oct-2017
From: Elizabeth Coggshall <ecoggshall
gmail.com>
Subject: Short-a in the Sixth Borough: A Sociophonetic Analysis of a Complex Phonological System in Jersey City
E-mail this message to a friend Institution: New York University
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2017
Author: Elizabeth Coggshall
Dissertation Title: Short-a in the Sixth Borough: A Sociophonetic Analysis of a Complex Phonological System in Jersey City
Dissertation URL:
https://search.proquest.com/openview/60f1c9ed3d7efe0e9ea6fd8a2c9a4c72/1?pq- Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics
Sociolinguistics
Subject Language(s):
English (eng) Dissertation Director:
Greg Guy
Renee Blake
John Singler
Carmen Fought
Susannah Levi
Dissertation Abstract:
The study of short-a (e.g., the vowel in words such as bat, bad, bang, ban) in New York City English (NYCE) has a long history, and with many different descriptions of this complex system (e.g., Babbitt 1896; Trager 1930; Labov 1966/2006; Cohen 1970; Labov 2007). It is complex due to the fact that it is not just a matter of following environment but instead includes a number of phonological, grammatical, and lexical conditions that determine which tokens of short-a are tense (fronter and higher) and which are lax (backer and lower). There are several other short-a systems in varieties of North American English.
While older work found the complex NYCE short-a system to be used only by white speakers, recent work has shown that some people of color also use this system (e.g., Becker 2010; Newman 2014). Work in Manhattan suggests the complex NYCE short-a system is being lost (e.g., Becker and Wong 2009), but work done in other boroughs suggests that language change is taking a different or at least a slower path (Newman 2014). More work in parts of the NYCE dialect area outside of Manhattan is needed to understand the breadth of variation. To this end, I interviewed twenty English speakers from Jersey City.
While recent research assumed a single, invariable system for the NYCE short-a, the body of work that first described the system showed immense amounts of variation. Assuming that there is a single, unerring version of the NYCE short-a system gives improper results in regards to how much the NYCE short-a system may have changed. For instance, Labov (2007) says that short-a before velar nasals is always lax, but Labov, Yeager, and Steiner (1972) said that this environment varied so much that they could not put it in the tense or lax category with full certainty. Recent work has used variability before /ŋ/ as evidence of loss of the system, but past work shows this variation to have been there all along.
In order to study the complex short-a system of NYCE fully, I composed a paradigm of 33 word classes of short-a words based on environments that past research had found to be important. These included following environment, lexical status (lexical versus function word), syllable status (open versus closed syllable), position in the word (word-initial versus not), morphemic status, and lexical exceptions. In creating this word class paradigm, I noticed a pattern: Environments described as invariable, like those before voiced stops or voiceless fricatives in closed syllables, are the environments where short-a occurs frequently; in contrast, environments that had been described as variable, such as those before voiced fricatives or voiced affricates, are ones where short-a is much less common. This finding suggests frequency may play a role in determining which word classes are invariable and which are variable.
The type of short-a system used by the speakers in Jersey City fell along ethnic lines. White speakers used a complex NYCE short-a system while the speakers of color used a nasal system. Variation was found within both systems. My research shows the need to take a detailed, historically informed approach when studying the NYCE short-a system. If we fail to take into account past variability, we risk misinterpreting variation within our data. If we fail to account for all present variability, we risk overlooking important differences between and among speakers.
Page Updated: 25-Oct-2017