Bipartite network structures and individual differences in sound change

Abstract

This paper assesses the influence of social network structure, and the role of the individual, in shaping the loss of the regional vowel system in the Southern U.S. city of Raleigh, North Carolina. The entire front vowel system, including monophthongal /aɪ/ as in ride, is shifting toward the national standard. Previous network studies in sociolinguistics have focused on individual-level network characteristics, such as integration in dense local networks or contact with speakers from different neighborhoods or ethnic groups. By contrast, the Raleigh study focuses on individuals’ positions in the community network structure as represented by a bipartite network of people and the schools they attended. Bipartite networks indicate social proximity between people via their shared participation in an event or organization.With a 189-speaker sample of Raleigh natives, the network measure of structural equivalence offers a view of Raleigh’s community network structure and of the individual’s role in advancing the shift away from the Southern vowel system. Structural equivalence is the extent to which nodes inhabit similar positions within a social network. In this case, it describes the extent to which pairs of speakers attended the same schools. A distance matrix containing each pair’s network proximity is used to predict speakers’ linguistic similarity. The role of the individual and of the social indexicality of Southern variants is considered in the context of aggregate patterns of variation.