American English Dialects Research Articles

Acoustic cues to linguistic profiling? Machine learning of phonetic features of African American English

Listeners can readily differentiate words spoken in an African American English (AAE) dialect from a Standard American English (SAE) dialect, even in absence of distinctive morphosyntactic features. However, it is still unclear what acoustic-phonetic cues listeners utilize to rapidly distinguish AAE from SAE. This study investigates the informativeness of various acoustic-phonetic cues to the characterization of AAE dialect. V and VC sequences (with C = /n/, /m/, /l/, /r/) from speech of 7 female speakers (4 SAE and 3 AAE), recorded during sociolinguistic interviews, were randomly selected and acoustically analyzed, controlling for coarticulatory context. Acoustic cues of F1, F2, F3, F4 formant trajectories, formant bandwidth, pitch variation, duration, intensity, and voice quality measures (e.g., harmonic-to-noise ratio, jitter, shimmer, and spectral slope) were measured in these segments to identify the extent of their contribution to separating AAE and SAE. The results from machine learning modeling of acoustic cues demonstrate that speech within an AAE dialect entails distinct acoustic characteristics and voice quality compared to SAE speech. These separate acoustic patterns between AAE and SAE dialect indicate the need for including dialect-specific acoustic cues both in automatic speech recognition applications and clinical assessments of speech-language disorders.

Montana English and Its Place in the West

Research Article| December 01 2017 Montana English and Its Place in the West Leora Bar-El; Leora Bar-El leora bar-el is an associate professor in the Linguistics Program of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Montana. She holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of British Columbia and was a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Oriental and African Languages (U.K.). Her research interests include the documentation and analysis of varieties of English spoken in Montana as well as cross-linguistic variation in temporal and aspectual systems. She has conducted fieldwork on indigenous languages of North America, primarily the languages of the Salish and Algonquian families. She is also interested in fieldwork methodologies, particularly those that are designed to uncover subtle semantic meanings and to tap into speaker intuitions about linguistic properties of languages and dialects. E-mail: leora.bar-el@umontana.edu. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Laura Felton Rosulek; Laura Felton Rosulek laura felton rosulek holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has taught a variety of linguistics courses at both the University of Montana and Oregon State University. Her research interests are in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. She is the author of Dueling Discourses: The Construction of Reality in Closing Arguments, published in 2015 as part of the Oxford University Press’s series Oxford Studies in Language and Law. She has also published papers in the International Journal of Speech, Language and Law, as well as Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse and Communication Studies. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree in speech-language pathology at the University of Oregon. E-mail: laura.rosulek@lebanon.k12.or.us. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Lisa Sprowls Lisa Sprowls lisa sprowls is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in linguistics at Tulane University. She holds a B.A. in German studies from American University and an M.A. in linguistics from the University of Montana. Her M.A. thesis is an examination of second-dialect acquisition in southwestern Pennsylvania. Her research is primarily focused on sociophonetics in American English dialects, particularly the dialects found in Pittsburgh, Montana, and New Orleans, the latter being the focus of her Ph.D. dissertation research. Her research interests also include indigenous languages of North America, and she has recently begun working with the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana on their Tunica language revitalization program. E-mail: lsprowls@tulane.edu. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Publication of the American Dialect Society (2017) 102 (1): 107–138. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-4295299 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Leora Bar-El, Laura Felton Rosulek, Lisa Sprowls; Montana English and Its Place in the West. Publication of the American Dialect Society 1 December 2017; 102 (1): 107–138. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-4295299 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsAmerican Dialect SocietyThe Publication of the American Dialect Society Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2017 American Dialect Society2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: ARTICLE You do not currently have access to this content.

The articulatory dynamics of pre-velar and pre-nasal /æ/-raising in English: An ultrasound study.

Most dialects of North American English exhibit /æ/-raising in some phonological contexts. Both the conditioning environments and the temporal dynamics of the raising vary from region to region. To explore the articulatory basis of /æ/-raising across North American English dialects, acoustic and articulatory data were collected from a regionally diverse group of 24 English speakers from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. A method for examining the temporal dynamics of speech directly from ultrasound video using EigenTongues decomposition [Hueber, Aversano, Chollet, Denby, Dreyfus, Oussar, Roussel, and Stone (2007). in IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (Cascadilla, Honolulu, HI)] was applied to extract principal components of filtered images and linear regression to relate articulatory variation to its acoustic consequences. This technique was used to investigate the tongue movements involved in /æ/ production, in order to compare the tongue gestures involved in the various /æ/-raising patterns, and to relate them to their apparent phonetic motivations (nasalization, voicing, and tongue position).

Assessing vowel space area metrics in the context of dialect variation

There has been a growing interest in the development of a sensitive methodology to define a working vowel space area (VSA) as a metric in basic and clinical research applications. In this study, three approaches to the assessment of VSA were tested to evaluate their efficacy in characterizing cross-dialectal and cross-generational variation: The traditional vowel quadrilateral, the traditional convex hull, and a more liberal convex hull. In the two traditional approaches, VSA was computed as a planar convex polygon shaped by phonologically distinct vowel categories as its corners. The mean F1/F2 values at vowel midpoint were used to define the respective areas. The liberal convex hull utilized vowel dynamics and variable F1/F2 temporal locations to refine the outer boundaries and maximize the VSA. This approach used an unrestricted number of vowels and measurement locations to define the optimal VSA. All computations were based on a common speech material produced by 135 female speakers representing three American English dialects and four generations ranging from 8 to 91-year olds. The three metrics yielded inconsistent and contradictory estimates of VSA. Discussion will focus on the limited utility of polygon geometry in characterizing a working VSA in American English dialects.

Applying pattern recognition to formant trajectories: A useful tool for understanding African American English (AAE) dialect variation

Few studies have focused on the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of African American English (AAE) which distinguish this dialect from Standard American English (SAE), particularly for vowels and sonorant consonants. This study investigated whether formant dynamics from short, sonorant portions of speech are sufficient to distinguish AAE and SAE dialects. Seven female speakers, four SAE and three AAE, from the Lansing, Michigan area, were selected from a corpus of 30-45 minute sociolinguistic interviews. Target portions of speech consisting of a V or VC sequence (C = /n/, /m/, /l/, /r/) were identified from contexts selected to control for coarticulation. First (F1) and second (F2) formant values were extracted from randomly selected tokens at points 19%, 56%, and 81% of the duration through the demarcated speech portions. Pattern recognition techniques were examined to differentiate tokens of the two dialects based on formant trajectories as feature vectors. The results revealed that formant dynamics of the selected contexts are acoustically informative enough to differentiate groups of SAE from AAE speakers. A near-perfect classification of some contexts was also achieved by applying support vector machines to the formant trajectories. These findings highlight the usefulness of incorporating pattern recognition techniques for understanding acoustic variation due to dialect.

Articulatory kinematics during connected speech across dialects and dysarthria

The current work presents an analysis of articulatory kinematics during connected speech in typical talkers and talkers with dysarthria from two different dialects of American English. Instrumental methods for obtaining articulatory kinematic data during speech (particularly electromagnetic articulography) are becoming increasingly viable within the clinical setting. Yet almost no existing clinical standards for collecting and interpreting articulatory kinematic data have been established. Moreover, there is little basis for differentiating the impact of dialect from dysarthria on articulatory kinematics. We examine articulatory kinematics obtained via electromagnetic articulography during a standard connected speech passage read by typical talkers (n = 30) and talkers with dysarthria (n = 15). Participants are divided among upper Midwestern and Southern American English dialects. Analyses focus on kinematic measures of articulatory movement (range-of-motion, speed, acceleration, and jerk) within and across dialect groups and between typical talkers and individuals with dysarthria. The goal of the current work is to provide a preliminary evaluation of whether different kinematic measures of articulatory movement during connected speech may be differentially sensitive to the impact of dialect and dysarthria. The results of this work are germane to establishing clinically relevant measures of articulatory kinematics to improve the clinical assessment of dysarthria.

A Rhetorical Analysis of Folk Linguistic Discourse: The Case of Twang

This article offers a new approach to dialect attitudes and ideologies that combines argumentation theory with conversation-analytic techniques. This rhetorically oriented, qualitative approach is used to explore how socioindexical and language-related meanings of folk linguistic concepts are constructed in conversations among Oklahoma English speakers. “Twang” was selected as a test case because it is often mentioned by nonlinguists as a common descriptor of differences among American English dialects. The analysis reveals a complex socioindexical profile of twang that integrates language-related, spatial, temporal, sociocultural, and historical associations. It also reveals implicit discursive schemes of speech valorization that represent twang as a socially authenticating linguistic resource. Participants use gradient representations of twang to index symbolic social boundaries between unmarked and “lesser” forms of whiteness in the American South. The article shows that propositional processes of sociolinguistic indexicality engage experiential, affective, performative, perceptual, and identity-related processes: participants demonstrate these interrelated engagements when they rationalize, justify, valorize, and illustrate their individual experiences with linguistic variability.

The Lexion Of The African American English In Georgia Doyle Johnson's Frederick Douglas And Loraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

To comprehend that a language belongs to a dialect, one may examine its lexicon. As it is considered non-standard dialect, the American African English lexicon is assumed to have its own characteristic different from the standard American English. Therefore, to gain a better comprehension of the American African English dialect in the view point of lexicon features, the paper will elaborate Georgia Doyle Johnsons Frederick Douglas And Loraine Hansberrys A Raisin In The Sun. This paper is descriptive linguistics rather than a stylistic study as it does not focus on literary style. The data taken was classified into linguistic elements and was tested to the theories of informal English in general; African American English in particular and Standard American English rules of pronunciation. The research findings were summarized and discussed to conclude the research. The result of the research demonstrates that African American English, a variant of informal English, is different from the rules of Standard American English. In terms of lexicon, African American English employs local and rude words. The presence of slang and colloquialisms, taboo words and swearing make it distinctively informal.

Pre-nasal short-a in Northern California: Merged in formant space with /ɛ/, but distinct in duration and degree of nasal coarticulation

Short-a, or /æ/, production varies substantially across American English dialects and is noted to be useful in describing regional pronunciation differences. The current study examines the production and perception of /æ/ in California English, which raises in words with a final nasal coda (both velar and non-velar nasals). We explore both the acoustic characteristics of this potential merger with /ɛ/, along with lexical confusability between words with /æ/ and /ɛ/ in prenasal position. Productions of 32 native California speakers reveal that the formant space of prenasal /æ/ indeed overlaps with /ɛ/. However, these vowels have reliably different patterns of two secondary acoustic features: duration and nasal coarticulation. /æ/ is produced with both a longer duration and a greater degree of nasal coarticulation than /ɛ/. Results from a lexical identification task presenting unaltered, as well as duration-neutralized, items to 50 listeners reveal that these vowels are not confusable despite considerable formant overlap. Furthermore, modeling results indicate that greater differences in nasalization between prenasal /æ/-/ɛ/ pairs lead to more accurate identification. Overall, the results from this study indicate that these secondary features help maintain the perceptual distinctiveness of /æ/-/ɛ/ words where formant merger has taken place.

Heritage Norwegian Vowel Phonology and English Dialect Formation

I present an acoustic analysis of the English and Norwegian spoken by contemporary heritage Norwegian-English bilinguals from northwestern Minnesota to evaluate claims of Norwegian substrate influence on the development of Upper Midwestern American English dialects. Specifically, this paper focuses on the English /o/ vowel, as in ‘goat’ or ‘boat,’ with a flat or falling trajectory (i.e., monophthongal /o/), that is a regional feature of the English of Minnesota and North Dakota (Allen, 1973–1976, vol. 3, pp. 22–23; Moen, 1988; Purnell, Raimy, & Salmons, in press; Thomas, 2001). Thomas (2001, p. 72) points to transfer from the Scandinavian languages’ (primarily Norwegian and Swedish) long [oː] vowels, which in many varieties of Norwegian are typically monophthongal (cf. Endresen, 1988, p. 84), as the source for monophthongal English /o/ in the region. Thomas (2001) relies on the relatively large settlements of Scandinavian immigrants in the Upper Midwest to support the Scandinavian source of this feature, yet so far we lack tests of this hypothesis. This paper seeks to fill this gap by providing both acoustic and phonological data from heritage Norwegian speakers. These data are situated in a discussion of how vowel productions reflect dialect differences within Norwegian-American communities, which enriches analyses of the adoption of substrate features into this regional variety of American English.

Toward a Description of African American Vernacular English Dialect Regions Using “Black Twitter”

Recent research has established that African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not monolithic. However, variation in AAVE has not been systematically described and mapped. This article uses new computational methods and social media to describe AAVE variation and to show AAVE dialect regions distinct from—and perpendicular to—the regions of other dialects of North American English. This study maps the geographic patterns of 30+ common nonstandard spellings on Twitter (e.g., sholl ‘sure’). It shows that nonstandard AAVE orthography delineates distinct dialect regions with shared phonological and lexical features. These regions are not coterminous with traditional North American dialect regions; rather, they align with patterns of movement during the Great Migrations.

A “pivot” model for extracting formant measurements based on vowel trajectory dynamics

Formant measurements are commonly extracted at fixed fractions across a vowel's duration (e.g., the 1/2 point for a monophthong and the 1/3 and 2/3 points for a diphthong). This approach tacitly relies on the convenience assumption that a speaker always maximally approximates the intended acoustic target at roughly the same point across a vowel's duration. The present paper proposes an alternate method whereby every formant point sampled within a vowel is considered as a possible "pivot" (i.e., turning point), with monophthongs modeled as having one pivot and diphthongs modeled as having two pivots. The optimal pivot for the vowel is then determined by fitting regression lines to the formant trajectory and comparing the goodness-of-fit of these lines to the raw formant data. When applied to a corpus of an American English dialect, the resulting measurements were found to be significantly correlated with previous methods. This suggests that the aforementioned convenience assumption is unnecessary and that the proposed model, which is more faithful to our understanding of articulatory dynamics, is a viable alternative. Moreover, rather than being assumed a priori, the location of the measurement can be treated as an empirical question in its own right.

Examining the Use of Spoken Dialect Indices With African American Children in the Southern United States

To examine the utility of different dialect indices that have been used to characterize the Non-Mainstream American English (NMAE) dialect of African American children. The relationships among 4 popular dialect indices were examined and compared with the results of a standardized tool used to classify the language variation of child speakers at 3 different grade levels. The authors used listener judgment ratings, 2 dialect density measures obtained from a narrative sample, a standardized tool (Part 1 of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Screener Test [DELV-ST; Seymour, Roper, & deVilliers, 2003]), and dialect variation scores (DVAR) obtained from the DELV-ST to characterize 113 African American children's spoken production of NMAE. Grade-level effects on NMAE varied depending on the index used to measure dialect production. All of the dialect indices under investigation were related to one another. DELV-ST classification group effects were present on all but 1 of the indices used to capture NMAE. Newer measures of NMAE, such as the DELV-ST and DVAR scores, are comparable to older measures such as dialect density measures and listener judgment ratings. Like listener judgment ratings, the DELV-ST and DVAR scores offer clinicians and researchers alike a quicker alternative to dialect density measures for confirming and quantifying the spoken production of NMAE dialect. The present findings confirm that, depending on the type of data collected and questions posed, researchers and clinicians alike are able to choose from multiple, valid, and reliable measures of non-mainstream dialect use.

Influence of Early Linguistic Experience on Regional Dialect Categorization by an Adult Cochlear Implant User

To investigate the ability of a cochlear implant user to categorize talkers by region of origin and examine the influence of prior linguistic experience on the perception of regional dialect variation. A postlingually deafened adult cochlear implant user from the Southern region of the United States completed a six-alternative forced-choice dialect categorization task. The cochlear implant user was most accurate at categorizing unfamiliar talkers from his own region and another familiar dialect region, and least accurate at categorizing talkers from less familiar regions. Although the dialect-specific information made available by a cochlear implant may be degraded compared with information available to normal-hearing listeners, this experienced cochlear implant user was able to reliably categorize unfamiliar talkers by region of origin. The participant made use of dialect-specific acoustic-phonetic information in the speech signal and previously stored knowledge of regional dialect differences from early exposure before implantation despite an early hearing loss.

Nuclear pitch accent in American English dialects: Truncation and compression

Dialects of the same language can differ in their use of prosody. We explored realization of nuclear pitch accent in female speech in three regional varieties of American English: Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. We found that both OH and WI speakers truncate the F0 contours while NC speakers compress them in identical environments. Our second question pertained to the effects of obstruent voicing in syllable coda on the F0 of the preceding nuclear vowel. We admitted three possibilities for the effects of a voiceless coda: shortened vowel duration may (1) “clip” the F0 contour and reduce the dialectal differences; (2) maintain the dialectal differences by preserving the F0 contour shapes found before a voiced coda; or (3) some dialects may “clip” and some may preserve the F0 contour. The results supported the third option. Ohio and Wisconsin speakers “clipped” the F0 contour so that F0 terminal values before a voiceless coda were higher than before a voiced coda. However, North Carolina speakers not only preserved the contours but their F0 terminal values before a voiceless coda were substantially lower than before a voiced coda. The effects of coda voicing on F0 fall were found to augment the dialectal differences.

A Longitudinal Study of Very Young Children's Vowel Production

Ecologically realistic, spontaneous, adult-directed, longitudinal speech data of young children were described by acoustic analyses. The first 2 formant frequencies of vowels produced by 6 children from different American English dialect regions were analyzed from ages 18 to 48 months. The vowels were from largely conversational contexts and were classified according to dictionary pronunciation. Within-subject formant frequency variability remained relatively constant for the span of ages studied. It was often difficult to detect overall decreases in the first 2 formant frequencies between ages 30 and 48 months. A study of the movement of the corner vowels with respect to the vowel centroid showed that the shape of the vowel space remained qualitatively constant from 30 through 48 months. The shape of the vowel space is established early in life. Some aspects of regional dialect were observed in some of the subjects at 42 months of age. The present study adds to the existing data on the development of vowel spaces by describing ecologically realistic speech.

An acoustic study of the Mary-merry-marry vowels in the Mid-Atlantic United States

This paper examines the acoustic properties of a subset of American English vowels before /r/--specifically, the mid and low front vowels in the MARY, MERRY, and MARRY classes. While the dialectal variation associated with the MARY, MERRY, and MARRY classes is well known in the sociolinguistics literature, the precise phonetic nature of these vowels has not been well studied. Many scholars [e.g., Labov et al. (2006)] transcribe the vowels as /eɪ/, /ɛ/, and /æ/, respectively, but these labels are largely impressionistic. The present study samples five speakers from the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States who maintain a three-way distinction between MARY, MERRY, and MARRY. The speakers' productions of MARY, MERRY, and MARRY vowels in both sentence and word list tasks were analyzed in Praat, and the resultant formant values were submitted to one-way ANOVAs, followed by pairwise comparisons (Tukey's HSD). The primary finding of this study is that the MARY vowel is acoustically closest to a tense (raised and fronted) variant of /æ/, similar to that which appears before nasals in many American English dialects. Contrary to previous descriptions, the MARY vowel shows little overlap with /eɪ/, suggesting that the conventional transcription should be revised.

Dialect variation and phonological knowledge: Phonological representations and metalinguistic awareness among beginning readers who speak nonmainstream American English

ABSTRACTChildren's spoken nonmainstream American English (NMAE) dialect use and their knowledge about phonological representations of word pronunciations were assessed in a sample of 105 children in kindergarten through second grade. Children were given expressive and receptive tasks with dialect-sensitive stimuli. Students who produced many NMAE features in speech nonetheless demonstrated considerable knowledge of “standard” English forms on the tasks, and their phonological representations were not deficient. In regression analyses, an inverse relationship between NMAE use and reading skill was observed, but mediated by phonological awareness. The findings are inconsistent with the view that print–speech mismatches interfere with young NMAE speakers’ reading acquisition, and instead suggest that dialect variation among beginning readers reflects metalinguistic differences that influence reading acquisition.

The Effect of Dialect Instruction on Student Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward African American English

This study assessed whether instruction in African American English (AAE) phonological and grammatical rules improved speech-language pathology students’ knowledge of AAE features. Students were also instructed in the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) position on nonstandard American English (non-SAE) dialects, which states that non-SAE dialects should be viewed as valid variations of SAE and should not be viewed as disordered speech. Students were given surveys before and after the instruction to assess their knowledge of AAE features and their attitudes toward AAE use. After instruction in the rules of AAE, students significantly improved their knowledge of the phonological and grammatical features of AAE. In addition, students changed their attitudes toward clinical practice with clients who speak AAE in the schools. At posttest, knowledge of AAE rules was significantly correlated with several attitudes toward clinical practice. This suggests that dialect instruction can improve students’ knowledge of non-SAE dialects.

Active change in American English dialects and their role in age perception.

Prior studies on vocal aging have varied with respect to the perceptual relevance of vowel formants. Two patterns have been (inconsistently) observed: formant lowering due to age-induced laryngeal lowering and formant centralization. A third hypothesis was investigated here: that active changes in the vowel systems of American English dialects, lead by younger (especially female) speakers, can themselves serve as vocal age cues independent of the cited (physiological) changes. One active vowel change is the California vowel shift, involving the lowering/backing of [I], [E], and [ae], one that has also been observed in young speakers in Florida and elsewhere. Would such systematic differences in vowel quality occurring frequently in younger speech play a significant role in female voice age perception? Speech samples were collected from 20 young and 20 middle-aged female residents of northern Florida under four conditions: (a) while conversing with another speaker matched versus mismatched in age category and (b) having been trained (versus untrained) to accurately simulate the California vowel shift in younger speakers. Acoustic analysis and age estimation studies were conducted to determine if the presence of a natural/simulated “younger” dialect shifted perceived age and the extent of any shift relative formant lowering and formant centralization.