The Canadian Shift: Its Acoustic Trajectory and Consequences for Vowel Categorization

Abstract

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>The Canadian Vowel Shift (CS), generally described as a systematic lowering and backing of the front lax vowels (/</span><span>ɪ</span><span>, </span><span>ɛ</span><span>, æ/; as in </span><span>KIT</span><span>, </span><span>DRESS</span><span>, and </span><span>TRAP</span><span>), has been investigated by several researchers over the last two decades (see Boberg 2005, 2008, 2010; Clarke, Elms & Youssef 1995; Hoffman 2010; Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006; Roeder & Jarmasz 2010; Sadlier- Brown & Tamminga 2008, among others). Using apparent-time comparisons of older and younger Canadians’ vowel spaces, these studies do not always agree on the acoustic trajectory of the CS, notably whether the front lax vowels are principally receding and/or lowering; perhaps these disagreements are unsurprising given the ongoing nature of the vowel shift, the variety of birth years interviewed, and the studies’ methodological differences and diverse locales. Boberg (2005) found /</span><span>ɛ</span><span>/ to be retracting and /æ/ to be lowering and then retracting in the speech of Anglophone Montrealers; this paper addresses the current apparent-time trajectory of the CS in one Montreal community. In addition, though several studies have investigated the CS in vowel production, nearly none (save De Decker 2010) have probed its effect on the perceptual categorization of vowels. This paper also introduces a perception experiment carried out with the same participants interviewed for production data.</span></p></div></div></div>