Stylistic variation among mobile speakers: Using old and new regional variables to construct complex place identity

Abstract

This paper examines stylistic variation in the (oh), (o), (aw), and (ay) classes among native speakers of Canadian English living in or just outside either New York City or Washington, DC. Speakers show evidence of change toward US norms for all four vowels, though only (aw) shows consistent style shifting: prevoiceless (aw) is realized with higher nuclei when speakers express ambivalence about or distance from the United States, and lower nuclei when closeness to or positive affect about the United States is being conveyed. Canadians in New York also show topic- and stance-based shift in (oh): (oh)s are higher when expressing positive affect or closeness to New York City and lower when expressing negative affect or distance. These results suggest that mobile speakers continue to exploit the socioindexical links in their native dialect while learning and using new links in their adopted dialect—but only if those links are socially salient.

The Role of Dialect Experience in Topic-Based Shifts in Speech Production

“…Instead, it looks as if both types of speakers are activating the idea of UK/US English—the stereotypical conception they have of these dialects—and these ideas are shared between migrants and nonmigrants. This claim that stereotypes drive topic-based shifting is consistent with other findings in the topic-based shifting literature: there is inaccurate shifting (Sanchez et al, 2015), and markers and stereotypes shift more than indicators (Bell, 1984; Callary, 1975; Drager et al, 2010; Labov, 1972; Nycz, 2018). 15 Of course, stereotypes are not the opposite of experience, and the nonmigrant speakers in this study at the very least still have a fair amount of media-conveyed exposure to the D2.…”

“…13.It is worth noting that other recent work looking at topic-based shifting in migrants has found less clear results: Lin (2018) only observed topic-based shifting on one of the variants she investigated, in the wrong direction, and Nycz (2018) found that interviewees shift their pronunciation depending on their affective regional stance in a given moment, but not with broadly defined regional topics. Thus, while the current study confirms that topic can induce shifts in production, we should be wary of assuming that it must (cf., Walker, Szakay, & Cox, 2019), and both methodological factors (reading task; interview; prime-type), and analytical approaches (individual; group) are likely to impact findings.…”

“…The fact that we see uneven topic-based shifting across different variables is unsurprising. It has long been noted in the style-shifting literature that some variables are more prone to change than others (e.g., Labov, 1972), with a general understanding that the most flexible variables are the ones that speakers recognize as being socially meaningful (e.g., Irvine, 2001:22; Nycz, 2018). The fact that Sanchez et al (2015) found that speakers make similar shifts on the stereotypical features of dialects regardless of their experience suggests that even fairly inexperienced speakers have robust representations of the stereotyped features of a dialect, and when the idea of a dialect is activated, it is critically these stereotypical markers that are activated.…”

“…These three variables were chosen because they have all been described as salient, shibboleth-like markers of US/UK English (Trudgill, 1986; Walker, 2014:126–127; Wells, 1982), and this is where most of the literature has suggested we will see both style-shifting and second dialect acquisition (i.e., Labov, 1972; Nycz, 2018; Siegel, 2010:121). Moreover, all three variables represent phonological differences between the dialects, enabling us to test for effects of D2 experience on topic-based shifting when such shifts would move speakers to more clearly D2 production spaces.…”

Stylistic variation among mobile speakers: Using old and new regional variables to construct complex place identity—Corrigendum

“…Table 5 did not display properly in the above publication (Nycz, 2018). The table is correctly displayed below.…”