This study examines trajectories of development in the use of African American English (AAE) for 32 speakers through the first 17 years of their lives based on a unique, longitudinal database. Temporal data points in the analysis include 48 months, Grade 1 (about age 6), Grade 4 (about age 9), Grade 6 (about age 11), Grade 8 (about age 13), and Grade 10 (about age 15). Complementary methods of analysis for assessing AAE include a tokenbased Dialect Density Measure (DDM), a type-based vernacular diversity index, and frequency-based variation analysis. The study reveals different trajectories and peak periods for the use of AAE, including a 'roller coaster' and a curvilinear trajectory; at the same time, there is a common dip among speakers in the overall use of vernacular AAE from Grade 1 through Grade 4. Examination of a selective set of demographic and self-regard measures shows no significant differences for gender, school racial density, racial peer contacts, and measures of Afro-centrality, but does show a significant correlation between mothers' and child use of AAE as well as age/grade.

Addressing the dearth of variation research in nonurban, noncoastal regions of California, this study examines the extent to which speakers in Redding, an inland community just north of the Central Valley, participate in the California Vowel Shift (CVS). We acoustically analyze the fronting of the back vowels boot and boat, the raising of ban and backing of bat, and the merger of bot and bought, in sociolinguistic interviews with 30 white lifelong residents. Results reveal a change in apparent time for all analyzed variables, indicating the CVS's progression through the community, though not as robust as in urban, coastal areas. Additionally, we provide evidence that shifting patterns for different vowels are structured by the ideological divide between town and country. Thus, as the CVS spreads through Redding, speakers utilize particular features of the shift differently, negotiating identities relevant in California's nonurban locales.

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the California Vowel Shift, previously characterized as a chain shift, in communities across California's Central Valley. An incremental apparent time analysis of 72 Californians’ vowel spaces provides no clear evidence of a gradual chain shift; that is, changes have not unfolded in an order that reflects an implicational chain in chronological time. Instead, we see contemporaneous movements of vowels that work against the phonological tendency of maximal dispersion typically invoked in describing chain shifts. By analyzing change in the size and dispersion of the entire vowel space, we find that ongoing sound change is instead characterized by a holistic compression of the vowel space. This suggests that, in these California communities, the shift's unfolding was driven by articulatory and social, rather than purely phonological, factors. We propose that the analysis of the size and spread of holistic vowel space can help characterize the nature and motivations for vocalic changes.

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In the wake of numerous analyses of vowels in African American English (AAE), this study examines acoustically the phonetic production of a consonant—the word-initial lateral /l/—across several generations of speakers from a long-standing African American community in central North Carolina. The results of the study show that /l/ is darker in younger AAE speakers than in older ones, independent of phonetic context. Comparisons with ex-slave recordings suggest that a light variant of /l/ may be a substrate feature of AAE that has changed in recent decades. Additional comparisons with regional European Americans suggest that the darkening may be due to convergence with majority American English dialects.