The English Prosodic Rhythm of African- and Haitian-Americans in South Florida

Abstract

In the study of prosodic rhythm, English is a typically characterized as a language with high durational variability between syllables, however contact with languages with low durational variability can cause an English variety to have comparatively lowered durational variability. South Florida’s history of contact between English and numerous Caribbean varieties predicts this type of altered prosodic rhythm. This study explores contact effects in the prosodic rhythm of South Florida (SF) African- and Haitian-Americans by comparing their English rhythm to that of SF Cuban-Americans and North Carolina African-Americans. SF African- and Haitian-American rhythms did not significantly differ from each other or from NC African-Americans for any of the four rhythm measures used (i.e., nPVI-v, %V, ΔC, and varcoC). Both target groups had significantly higher durational variability than that of Cuban-Americans in three of the four measures. Within the Haitian-American group, participants with higher Haitian Creole usage had significantly more durational variability than those with low Haitian Creole use, contrary to what bilingualism with Haitian Creole predicts. The results suggest prosodic rhythm variation is not necessarily solely due to transfer or substrate effects from other languages, rather there may be social reasons for rhythm variation. durational variability than those who use HC less.