The Retroflexion of Postvocalic /r/ in Austin

Abstract

TEXAs ENGLISH is known to have developed essentially from Southern and Midland dialects, with some Spanish and German influence mainly in central and south Texas.' Settlers from the Deep South pushed westward, making their homes in east Texas for the most part, while South Midland speakers from Tennessee and Kentucky moved down across Arkansas into northeast, central, and west Texas. Hence, heteroglosses of both Southern and Midland speech patterns would be expected to appear in central Texas, but the proportion of each is yet to be determined. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY. A preliminary study observing the speech of employees in various downtown and suburban stores in Austin, in central Texas, revealed, among other phonological characteristics, a variance in the quality of postvocalic /r/. A careful study of this feature was therefore planned and conducted to determine the degree of retroflexion of /r/ and to ascertain whether social, stylistic, occupational, racial, sex, and age differentiations correlate with differences in the production of this phoneme. Since a glide or slight retroflexion indicates Southern influence2 and since heavy retroflexion is characteristic of Midland speech, the study consequently proposed to measure the degree to which the Midland dialect, in the form of heavily retroflexed postvocalic /r/, appears in Austin. Further, it sought to determine (1) whether retroflexion of /r/ is socially, racially, stylistically, occupationally, or otherwise controlled and, if so, to what extent and in which direction and (2) whether a trend in the degree of retroflexion could be discovered. METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. William Labov demonstrated the social