An exploration of mixed race and the California Vowel Shift

Abstract

The California Vowel Shift (CVS) has been the study of much acoustic linguistic inquiry since it was first noted in the 1980s. It has since been grouped in with other like patterns which have arisen independently under the name, Low-Back-Merger-Shift (LBMS), though California will be the focus of the present study. The current study builds on previous literature by investigating acoustic vowel quality within a neighborhood in San Francisco, while also working to fill the gap of studies which take into account and specifically highlight mixed race peoples. Using vowel F1 and F2 measurements taken from informal interviews with 27 speakers from The Sunset district in San Francisco, a primarily white and Asian neighborhood, the vowel spaces of these speakers were examined. The aim of this project was to determine if racial/ethnic status as monoracial (Asian or White) or mixed-race had a significant effect on speakers' vowel quality and their level of participation in the CVS. Quantitative analysis found that speakers' vowel systems do exhibit the characteristics of CVS. For the back vowels /ɑ/, /ɔ/, /ʌ/, /ʊ/, /u/, and /o/ difference between speakers of mixed race and their white counterparts were found to be statistically significant.