Quantitative research about linguistic variation has consistently revealed linguistic differences between speakers of different socioeconomic classes. For example, changes "from below" -- those which speakers are not aware of -- are thought to be led by middle or upper working classes. Yet the social and linguistic origins of these differences have proven elusive. A promising but under-utilized area of inquiry about the reasons for class distinctions is the complex relationship between class and social network. This project uses interdisciplinary methods to look for network-based explanations for linguistic differences between social classes, and to explore network methods for the study of linguistic variation.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, the Southern dialect has been disappearing since the middle of the 20th century. Sociophonetic analysis of speakers' front vowel systems reveals that the rapid loss of Southern vowels began at the time of large-scale migration of white collar Northern speakers to Raleigh. This project continues an existing corpus of sociolinguistic interviews in the dialect contact setting of Raleigh, North Carolina. Data collection for the corpus began in 2008 and has so far resulted in hour-long sociolinguistic interviews with 257 White and African American speakers. The overarching goal in collecting the data has been to carry out a long-term study of the social dynamics of language change and dialect contact, with particular attention to the role of socioeconomic class, social network, and their interaction in producing the ongoing reversal of the Southern Vowel Shift. The major goals are 1) the collection of interviews with approximately 50 additional working class speakers, 2) the continued transcription and automated measurement of vowels in existing and new sociolinguistic interviews, adding to the 107 speakers for whom measurements are completed; 3) the collection of additional network data from some existing speakers; 4) statistical assessment of hypotheses concerning class and network.
This research project will contribute to the public understanding of ethnic and regional language diversity in American society. The Raleigh project will be the basis of an exhibit in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences which will introduce museum visitors to acoustic phonetics and dialect geography. Both undergraduate and graduate students will gain experience and training in data collection and statistical analysis.
