Vowel Formation Chart

Lecture 24

Lecture 24 -- Summary Outline

Language and Society: What Your Speech Says about You

By Valerie Fridland

The Changing Face of Linguistic Diversity

People are often interested in two questions related to the subject of

linguistics: (1) Are English dialects becoming more similar over time,

and (2) What effect does mass media have on language? It seems

obvious that the massive exporting of English and American pop culture must

be shaping the way people communicate in some fashion, but surprisingly,

these questions are understudied by theoretical linguists. In this lecture, we

will take a look at the opposing forces of convergence and divergence in

language, both at home and abroad. We’ll examine both the power and the

limitations of linguistic imperialism. And We’ll find out if the global reach

of popular media is, in fact, shaping the way English is spoken worldwide.

I. The Question of Convergence

A. Convergence can be as simple as borrowing vocabulary words or as

complex as acquiring new grammatical rules. It is much more likely

in the former case than the latter. For example, we have easily

picked up the words sake and sushi, but we don’t generally adopt

Japanese grammatical word order.

B. We can also discuss convergence in terms of decreasing numbers

of languages in the world overall or in terms of linguistic leveling

across regionally distinctive forms within a single language.

C. Adding to this complexity, language is driven toward divergence

in response to social pressures, such as gender, race, and class.

Cultural and social motivations often ch‘ive us to speak differently,

either because of geographic or social separation or a desire to set

ourselves apart.

D. Why might we want to converge or diverge linguistically? In yotn'

own experience, do you pick up on certain styles of speaking when

the person you’re talking to is someone with whom you identify

strongly? Do you sometimes move to a formal, impersonal style

because you want to distance yourself from someone? These

questions point to the power of identity construction, which is

crucial to the issue of convergence.

II. Identity Construction

A. In an earlier lecture, we discussed a number of social factors, such

as migration, geography, ecology, and group reference, that help

to form and maintain dialects. Quite frequently, as we’ve seen,

language changes occur in ways that make speakers more distinct

from others. This leads to the recognition of specific dialects and, in

some cases, the birth of new languages. In fact, this is how English

came into existence in the first place.

B. Language divergence happens when speakers move away from each

other for economic, sociopolitical, or psychological reasons. Often,

this occurs simultaneously with a population shift, as in situations

involving colonization, migration, or war. Insofar as these same

pressures affect us today and into the future, it is unlikely that the

process of linguistic divergence will disappear altogether.

C. However, languages or language varieties also become more similar

over time. For example, the early settlement of the United States led

to increasing divergence from dialects in England. As the settlers in

the New World established social and cultural ties, a new koine was

formed-a new variety of language resulting from the mixture of

various language inputs. As a result of this New World koine, the

children of the early settlers began to speak more like one another

and less like those who stayed behind in the original homeland.

D. Likewise, the emergence of a standard language in the face of

many regionalized or local varieties often has a homogenizing

effect to some degree on the local varieties themselves. Thus, in

our own history, colonists began to see their land not as isolated

settlements but as a united band of colonies in opposition to the

British government. This recognition of greater similarity across

groups brought greater linguistic convergence. In other words,

regionalisms, though still present, became part of a larger, more

recognizable “American” dialect-bringing with it symbolic unity.

E. Sometimes this linguistic standardization occurs not just at the

national level but also at the international level. The expansion of

a nation economically, politically, or militarily can establish that

language as an international linguistic model. In modem times,

this process of standardization has certainly intensified with our

increased global connectedness and reliance on CMC.

III. The Global Expansion of English

A. Over the last century, English has spread rapidly around the globe

in its role as a language of diplomacy, economy, and entertainment.

For those speaking a less economically or socially advantageous

language, there is something to be gained by teaching their children

English or adopting English as a second language themselves.

With such widespread adoption of English, we certainly seem to be

converging toward a smaller set of dominant languages.

B. At the same time, this expansion gives birth to new and diverging

dialects of English. Many world Englishes have now moved

beyond being just second languages. They have become thriving

separate dialects, in some cases, with a native speaker base of

their own. This is true in Singapore, West Africa, Hong Kong, and

the Philippines.

C. The key to the development of world English has been contact-

situations in which two or more groups of speakers are forced

to interact and communicate with each other. This contact alone

establishes a new form of language, particularly when members of

one group must acquire a language to meet a dominant group’s needs.

D. In the case of English, indigenous language speakers adopted

the variety brought to their land by British colonizers, starting in

the l6“‘ century. Over time, these varieties developed uniquely to

represent the cultural and linguistic diversity of those speaking it.

E. Though it may seem that the colonizer simply instills a dominant

linguistic code, it is rare that the experience of the linguistic groups

involved is that rigid and fixed. Instead, though the language may

be imposed by a politically and economically dominant group, it is

altered and shaped by the experiences of the indigenous population.

Of course, it is here that English takes on the role of the “killer”

language-when it begins to encroach on the domains of the

indigenous language that preceded it.

F. Although such spread of English is often taken as evidence of

increasing linguistic homogenization, that is far from true.

1. Over time, the English of another land comes to represent the

social and cultural aspects of those speakers in the same way

that Southern speech in the United States has come to represent

a different history and way of life in the South. It is from this

perspective that we seem to fear English’s globalization-not

because of a fear of homogenization, but because English

becomes something else to someone else.

2. The dark side of this convergence is that it typically results in

the death of some languages, particularly those that don’t have

a large number of speakers.

G. Even granting the serious nature of this phenomenon, we should

remember the forces of linguistic divergence. As English becomes

more widespread, speakers become proficient at creating global

varieties that come to represent group identity.

IV. The Effects of Mass Media

A. If we think of linguistic movement toward similar vocabulary,

or “Iexis,” as being a meaningful type of convergence, then we

can certainly say that movies, television, and online media are

promoting convergence around English forms. For the most part,

though, linguistic change beyond new vocabulary requires true

social engagement and interaction.

B. Despite extensive contact with mainstream varieties, the social cost

of convergence still outweighs the potential benefits. Thus, in every

major city of the United States, ethnic varieties are alive and well.

This suggests that we are far from convergence toward a single

variety of English, despite mass media and increasing mobility.

C. Of course, we still find evidence of convergence. Although ethnic

varieties retain their distinction from mainstream English, it’s

often true that this distinction is now maintained by fewer, more

recognizable features, rather than by a large collection of linguistic

characteristics. This process, in which fewer but salient features do

the work of social identification, is called linguistic focusing.

D. We also find that changes in U.S. migratory patterns have affected

what were once salient ecological differences among American

dialects. For example, over the last century, rural dialects have

atrophied Migration to cities has created both dialect contact and

a motivation for speakers of rural dialects to shift toward more

standard forms. Research suggests that similar dialect leveling is

occurring in Great Britain.

E. To some degree, changes in modern speech can be traced to

exposure to pop culture and the media. The most obvious examples

here include the spread of vocabulary items or phrases. What else

does our mass media export?

1. In general, research has found little support for the idea that

grammatical and phonological patterns are diffused via media

Picking up an isolated pronunciation of a word is not unusual,

but deeper levels of linguistic influence require peer group

interaction and local rewards for using new forms.

2. There is limited evidence, however, that popular media might

be able to spread some phonological alternations. This is

true only if the media norm plays into a linguistic and social

ideology that already exists in the target community. In other

words, some research suggests that exposure to norms already

familiar and accessible at some level within a community can

be assisted by modeling in pop culture.

V. Linguistic Unity?

A. As we’ve discussed, there is a consistent trend toward linguistic

leveling across a number of regional dialects. However, there is

also ample evidence of divergence.

1. Earlier, for example, we saw a number of vowel changes

affecting the regional dialects of American English. This is

in contrast to what we might expect given accessibility and

contact patterns.

2. In addition, vowel patterns in Englishes worldwide, such as

New Zealand English and varieties of Southern British English,

are also showing divergent vowel systems. Such tendencies

suggest that at the level of phonology, there is not a great deal

of convergence overall.

B. We also have found no evidence that access to mass media has

introduced much beyond vocabulary worldwide. In other words,

social interaction remains the primary means through which

language changes. Limited social engagement, such as that typically

found among speakers of different global English varieties, limits

the degree to which language converges toward shared nouns.

C. Most importantly, though, the belief that we are headed toward

linguistic convergence doesn’t take into account the fact that

linguistic diversity serves an important role. Dialects are about

communicating identity as much as about communicating facts.

D. Throughout this course, we have seen how much our language

differs depending on who is using it and who we are talking to.

Clearly, these influences will not lessen or fade away soon.

Language, as long as it is part and parcel of social identity, will

remain a flexible and evolving tool to reflect our differences, as

well as our similarities.

Lecture 8

Lecture 8 --  Summary Outline

Language and Society: What Your Speech Says about You

By Valerie Fridland

Your Shifty Vowels

Almost all major dialects of American English are undergoing massive

changes in their vowels. These changes differ from region to region

nd among ethnic and age groups in different regions. Because most

of the people we talk to speak the same dialect we do, we notice differences

only when they are unusual to us. These latest vowel shifts are not the first to

affect English, but they certainly represent some of the most striking changes

to our speech in quite some time. Perhaps most surprisingly, American

speech is becoming less similar, not more similar, regionally. In this lecture,

we’ll explore how vowel articulation comes to mark social differences, and

we’ll learn about vowel production.

I. Modern Vowel Shifts

A. Linguists have been studying vowel movements, often referred

to as vowel shows, since isolated vowel changes were first noted

in the 1970s. However, the extensive and interrelated shifts that

we currently recognize in U.S. dialects were not really identified

until the early 1990s as interrelated shift patterns. We also find that

Canada is being affected by vowel shifts that are different than

those in the United States.

B. We often think of regionally diagnostic terms or words as the main

markers of where a person is from-such terms as “y’alI” versus

“youse guys” or “soda” versus “pop.” However, vowel pronunciation

actually plays a more extensive role in making someone sound

like a Southerner, Westerner, or Northerner than we tend to think.

Despite this, we are rarely able to articulate exactly what the

differences in vowel sounds are.

C. Although speech samples from speakers in different parts of the

country sound different, pinpointing specifically what differs

among them is difficult. You might notice a particular word or two

that stand out as distinctive, but it isn’t the word that’s different; it’s

the way the vowels in it sound.

D. Obvious markers of region, such as y’aII or totally rad, make a

clear social claim Vowel sounds, in contrast, are typically below

the level of conscious awareness. Changes in vowel sounds are not

usually even noticed by those shifting them. Eventually, when we

meet people outside of our dialect region that don’t shift in the same

way, we may notice that they pronounce their vowels strangely,

but we probably don’t realize that they are thinking the same thing

about us.

E. Vowel shifts can progress rapidly across age, gender, and regional

groups without meeting the social roadblocks that many more

obvious language differences meet. For example, you don’t usually

hear people comment on the way someone else pronounces his or

her vowels, but the substitution of /v/ for /th/ or the deletion of an

/r/ (as in “brovah” instead of “brother”) is often seen as salient.

II. Vowel Articulation

A. Why is it that vowel articulation is so much more subtle yet makes

such a difference?

1.  Vowel sounds are produced along somewhat of a continuum

in the mouth. There are fuzzy areas between what constitutes

different vowel qualities for speakers in different regions.

2. We can make an iw/ sound (as in cat) either raised (“ce-aet”)

or retracted (“cuht”) but still have someone understand that we

are saying cat. We then start to identify this subtle variation

with social distinctions.

3. For example, if Great Aunt Mary says “caht” while our

children say “ce-act,” this distinction may come to signal

age differences when we hear it, even though we may not

recognize it consciously. Yet again, we see how language-in

this case, vowel articulation-subtly indicates and reinforces

social categories-in this case, old versus young.

B. ln contrast to other speech sounds, vowels vary quite a bit, and

this variation provides us with an effective yet still linguistically

comprehensible way to recognize social differences.

1. Though there is some variation in how they are produced,

consonants are less variable than vowels. In general, to

make a consonant sound, you have to hit specific targets in a

particular way.

2. Vowels are a more relational kind of articulation. If you make

a vowel sound a bit higher or lower in the mouth compared

to someone else, it doesn’t matter so much as long as you are

making it distinct from other vowel sounds. This continuous

rather than clear-cut distinction between vowel sounds makes

it harder to recognize exactly how the sound is different unless

you are linguistically trained.

3. But these subtle differences that simply develop through

shared use by a regional or ethnic group are then identified

as social indicators. Again, as we’ve been exploring with

language development more generally, we see that our

speech is a result of both social and linguistic pressures that

are a reflection of where we come from and who we speak

with most.

III. Vowel Normalization and Social Differences

A. Vowels are essentially created by vibrations within the vocal tract;

thus, the size of the vocal tract makes a difference in terms of the

frequencies produced by the shaping of the airflow through it. The

process people use to understand another speaker’s vowels when

they sound different is vowel normalization.

1. Normalization processes seem to be most efficient when

there is talker familiarity. That means that the more you

hear a particular speaker, the quicker and more efficiently

you normalize his or her speech. This is the reason you

understand the speech of those you talk to most often more

readily than those with whom you may not have much

experience speaking.

2. Normalization may make it seem that variations in vowel

sounds are not very significant-because listeners are able

to accommodate for them. But when an entire group or

community starts to vary its vowel production in the same

way overtime, then the target for that vowel for children may

become shifted toward a new norm

3. The community as a hole changes in a linguistically patterned

way that opens up the opportunity for that shift to become a

marker of a particular social identity. Speakers outside that

community don’t shift consistently or at all toward the new

target, leading to a potentially socially significant difference

among groups of speakers.

B. Why might people start to produce a sound in a systematically

different way than they originally heard it? It seems that young

people are the critical link in introducing innovations into a

community’s speech.

1. Adolescence favors social forces beyond class, including

the need for autonomy and independence. These are forces

that are often not as relevant as we age. Although adults are

economically status conscious, teenagers are status conscious

based on other factors. Athletic ability, urbanness, coolness-

all these are critical during maturation, as is the need to express

separation from adult norms.

2. These factors, it seems, help drive vowel changes, among other

types of changes. We will explore more about language and

youth in a later lecture, but we typically End that it is younger

people who are most advanced in sound changes entering a

community.

C. If several communities adopt new norms for vowel production

over time-and do so in different ways-we end up with socially

diagnostic vowels indicative of membership in those communities.

This is exactly what seems to be happening in regional U.S. dialects

today. At the same time, some of the new positions for other vowels

in American English seem to be in the process of dialect leveling,

or losing local differentiation.

D. Because the same vowel sounds reoccur in many of the words we

use, any shift in vowel pronunciation generally affects the way we

say all words containing that vowel sound. A shift in our vowels

can, thus, drastically change a language over time.

IV. Vowel Production

A. Most American dialects have about ll single vowel sounds and 3

main diphthongs, although this inventory varies a bit depending

on a speaker’s dialect and on what is counted as a separate

vowel sound. These sounds are made by moving the tongue

front and back and up and down and by rounding or spreading

the lips. These movements create different shapes in the mouth,

which in ttn‘n create different resonances in the airflow that we

hear as different vowel sounds. This is what linguists refer to as

vowel qualities.

B. When discussing how we make vowel sounds, we typically refer to

a number of concurrent factors: tongue position (front or back of the

tongue lifted high, mid, or low in the mouth), jaw position (opened

or closed), and lip position (rounded or spread). The movements

of the tongue and lips work together to essentially make a tube.

Air moving through vibrates at different resonances, depending

on the shape made with this tube. Different shapes create different

vowel sounds.

C. We can more easily understand how these elements work together

by thinking about how vowel sounds are produced in the mouth.

Linguists typically arrange vowels on a trapezoid-shaped chart.

Vowels produced at the front part of the mouth are represented on

the left of the chart (toward the hypothetical open part of the mouth),

and vowels produced at the back of the mouth are represented on

the right side of the chart. The charts below show the front and back

vowel subsystems.

D. Vowel shifting is part of the history of every language and results

in significant changes over time in the way sounds are pronounced.

Part of what makes vowel shifts have such an impact on the way

language systems develop is because of the interconnectedness of

the vowel space.

1. A change in the articulation of one vowel can encroach on the

way another vowel is produced. Or the movement of one vowel

can open up possibilities for another vowel sound to move into

the articulatory space it previously occupied.

2. This kind of simultaneous related shifting is called a vowel

chain shift, and such chain shifts can radically reorganize the

vowel space of a language or dialect. Indeed, such vowel shifts

result in the development of longstanding linguistic divergence

because they often affect which vowel categories are perceived

in a language.

E.As we know, English has shifted quite a bit over time-from its

Germanic vowel qualities to Old English, then to Middle English,

and finally to Modern English vowel categories. Now it seems as if

our vowels are shifting yet again.

Lecture 4

Lecture 4 -- Summary Outline

Language and Society: What Your Speech Says about You

By Valerie Fridland

Four Levels of Language Variation

Previously, we examined how communities of speakers build social

meaning using some parts-but not others-of their linguistic

endowment. Different groups vary in terms of which aspects of

linguistic competence they use, with social facts playing a large role in

determining what facets of their cognitive grammar are relevant in their

speech. Individuals’ speech also varies according to the norms of their more

local communities. But before we delve too deeply into this relationship

between variation and social identity, we first need to understand the different

linguistic features that can be put to work by speakers. In this lecture, we will

cover some of the linguistic levels affected by dialect variation, specifically,

phonetics, phonology, syntax, and morphology.

I. Phonetics and Phonology

A. The areas of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language

are phonetics and phonology. Though these two fields are related,

phonetics centers on how sounds are actually produced.

1. An example of a phonetic difference might be the Southern

pronunciation of the vowel in the words tie and hide as “taz”

and “ha:d.”

2. The Southern pronunciation of the fay/ vowel is what is

referred to by linguists as a linguistic shibboleth-a speech

form that is recognizable as being associated with a particular

type of speaker or as signaling a particular social identity.

Though not all Southerners monophthongize the fay/ vowel, no

non-Southerners do; thus, it is a strongly identifying feature of

Southern speech.

B. Phonology is the area of linguistics that is concerned with how

human speech sounds are organized into unique systems in

language.

1. An example of phonological organization would be the number

of vowels used in different languages. For example, there are 5

vowel sounds in the vowel inventory of Japanese. Essentially,

all words use one of those 5 vowels and no other vowel sounds.

English, in contrast, has a large vowel inventory, essentially

using ll stressed vowels.

2. One consequence of this difference is that a Japanese speaker

must use one of the 5 Japanese vowel sounds to approximate

English vowels when learning English words. This results in

the substitution of the closest vowel from the Japanese system

for the vowel the speaker lacks in the English system.

3. The vowel sounds in boot and book are different for an English

speaker, but this contrast does not exist in Japanese. Thus,

when speaking English, a Japanese speaker will use the vowels

in Japanese that are the closest-sounding approximates to the

vowel sounds of English. Because tl'|is won’t be equivalent

to an English speaker, this difference will mark the Japanese

speaker as a normative speaker of English.

4. This is an example of how phonology can mark a difference

between two languages. This difference may, in turn, be

taken to suggest certain things socially about the speaker,

such as level of cultural awareness and, in some cases, even

competence. In reality, however, an adult learner of English is

simply constrained by a first-language system that makes exact

replication of the second language impossible.

II. Spoken versus Written Language

A. It’s important to remember that linguistics is primarily concerned

with spoken, not written, language and that this perspective results

in different ways of understanding language variation.

1. For example, most variation that we will discuss in the next

few lectures will not have any correlate in the written form

of the word. When speakers who pronounce “pin” and “pen”

in the same way write these words down, they typically write

them as the rest of us do. As we will see, written language is

tied into the norms associated with standard formal English,

not the version we use in our day-to-day, face-to-face

interactions.

2. Throughout these lectures, we need to remind ourselves to

think as we speak, not as we write, when discussing language

variation.

B. An important concept when talking about any level of linguistics is

that of rules. We tend to think of writing as informing us of the rules

of how to speak But we had language skills long before we went to

school and started writing. The type of rule system that drives our

oral versus written knowledge of language is vastly different. For

example, in phonology, the way we put sounds together is a strictly

governed process regardless of which language or dialect we speak.

1. Possible human speech sounds appear to be limited. On the one

hand, we find similar sounds being used in most ofthe world’s

languages, such as /i/, /u/, /m/, and /k/. On the other hand, we

produce many sounds, such as blowing or teeth-chattering,

that have no linguistic meaning anywhere in the world This

suggests that sound selection in language is driven by cognitive

and articulatoly rules or preferences; it is not arbitrary.

2. Further, we don’t connect just any sounds together into

syllables; there are many sound combinations that are never

evidenced in human language. Even preliterate children know

these types of rules and don’t break them.

C. These linguistic rules are different than social rules. Such rules as

“Don’t split infinitives” are social niles of grammar, not linguistic

rules. And when you violate grammar rules, you do not violate the

linguistic rules that stand behind the language we speak. Instead,

you violate the conventional grammar rules that our educational

and institutional systems have established as the social norm.

1. Linguists refer to this difference as the difference between

prescriptive and descriptive rules. Prescriptive rules are those

established by grammarians to control the output of speakers

by assigning prestige or penalties based on the use or nonuse

of prescribed language norms. Descriptive rules describe how

language works and is used by speakers-what you already

know unconsciously as a speaker of a human language.

2. Linguistics is a descriptive field; its goal is to explain the

linguistic output of speakers in terms of what is possible and

what is not possible in language based on empirical evidence.

Although we will often discuss prescriptive rules and their

interaction with language in society in these lectures, the

linguistic rules we will discuss are those that are responsible

for all languages and dialects we find in the world.

D. It’s important to note that every language and every dialect is

systematic and rule governed, but rules driving dialects differ.

There can be a great deal of difference in rules between linguistic

systems, say, between such languages as English and Arabic. Or

there can be fewer and subtler differences between systems, such

as those between British and American English or Southern and

Northern English.

III. Syntax

A. Syntax is the study of sentence formation. In addition to knowing

possible speech sounds, we also have knowledge of the structure of

phrases, such as across the floor and the giant rodent, and sentences,

such as The giant rodent scurried across the floor. Syntax is the

toolkit that tells us what goes where and how.

B. An important feature of syntax is grammaticality judgment. This is

essentially native speaker intuition about what constitutes a “good”

sentence in the language.

1. Obviously, not every sequence of words strung together is a

possible sentence. For example, consider: The runs a weeofy

already town the from. Clearly, no one would say such a

sentence, and no one would judge it to be a grammatical

sentence of English.

2. Again, it is because of rules-both universal rules and

language-specific rules-that we can make judgments about

whether a sentence we hear or see is grammatical or not.

C. Of course, different languages and even dialects have different

rules that can apply to make sentences that would not be acceptable

structures for another speaker. However, the “wrongness” of such

a sentence as He don t do nothing is a different kind of wrong than

the sentence above, which a listener cannot even process.

D. The possible variation in syntactic structures is constrained by the

possibilities allowed by our universal grammar. Although multiple

negation is a socially dispreferred structure in standard English, it is

a perfectly fine structure in terms of following linguistic rules.

IV. Morphology

A. Morphology is the study of how words are formed and created. ln

this field, linguists look at slang or novel words, such as Google,

bling, or blog, which actually follow specific word formation

rules. Some words seem to be formed through “regular” processes,

while others seem to be exceptions or “irregular” (for example,

dog/dogs versus tooth/teeth, jogged versus ran). Most of these

irregular forms are remnants from older forms of English, when the

language had a much more complicated verb and noun class system.

B. New words, when they enter the language through borrowing or

through invention, are also subject to linguistic rules. When a new

word, such as Google, enters the language, it belongs to a particular

category, in this case, a verb. Thus, by default, English speakers

understand that to form the past tense, we add -ed, and to form

the progressive, we add -ing. We are also able to make the word

into a noun by adding a “noun-type” ending; for example, one who

Googles may be called a Googler.

C. We can be quite creative with new words but only insofar as is

allowed by our linguistic constraints on word formation. For

example, no English speaker would form the past tense of Google

as Goggle per the sing/sang or ring/rang model. These are not

productive rules of English morphology and, unless someone is

being purposefully atypical, would simply not morphologically

occur anymore.

D. As with phonology and syntax, morphology is also an area where

languages and dialects can differ substantially. Many languages use

more affixes than English does to express meaning, and sometimes,

these take the form of infixes (breaking up the base) or circumfixes

(encircling a base). This is not something we find in English unless

we count slang expressions, such as “I guaran-damn-tee it!”

E. Languages and dialects can also differ in simply what is selected

to be encoded as a morpheme (meaning unit) and what is not. In

Chinese, the past tense is not grammaticized as a separate word

but instead is interpretable from other linguistic and pragmatic

contextual cues. In other words, unlike in English, it is not

mandatory to add something like -ed or -ing on the end of a word

to communicate past tense.

F. Our language can and does vary substantially on a number of

different levels simultaneously. When morphology is combined

with phonetics, phonology, and syntax, we have a powerful set

of tools for performing both linguistic and social work with

our speech.