Vowel Pronunciation as an Ethnic Marker: Pacific Islander Teens in Salt Lake County, Utah

Abstract

This paper analyzes word list recordings from 37 Pacific Islander (PI) and 40 European American (EA) teens from two Salt Lake County (SLCo) high schools to address three questions: (1) Do the teens in the study participate in the linguistic practices previously described for Utah and for the American West? (2) Do EAs and PIs pattern together, or is there a distinctive PI pattern in SLCo? (3) How does the ethnic composition of the school context affect ethnic-based vowel patterns? The analysis focuses on a subset of vowel features associated with the West: the Low-Back-Merger Shift (LBMS) and the fronting of non-low back vowels. Results show the Utah teens employing many LBMS features, with statistical differences based on gender, ethnic group, and school (with school acting as a proxy for ethnic diversity). Non-low back vowel positions are generally consistent with historical baselines. BOAT vowel positions are farther back for PI participants, and there is a small difference in BUT vowel position based on gender, ethnicity, and school. The results of this ethnographically grounded study demonstrate how small phonetic differences may help construct ethnic identity and why it is important to include more participants of color in dialectal research.