Ewa Jacewicz

Articulation rate across dialect, age, and gender

The understanding of sociolinguistic variation is growing rapidly, but basic gaps still remain. Whether some languages or dialects are spoken faster or slower than others constitutes such a gap. Speech tempo is interconnected with social, physical and psychological markings of speech. This study examines regional variation in articulation rate and its manifestations across speaker age, gender and speaking situations (reading vs. free conversation). The results of an experimental investigation show that articulation rate differs significantly between two regional varieties of American English examined here. A group of Northern speakers (from Wisconsin) spoke significantly faster than a group of Southern speakers (from North Carolina). With regard to age and gender, young adults read faster than older adults in both regions; in free speech, only Northern young adults spoke faster than older adults. Effects of gender were smaller and less consistent; men generally spoke slightly faster than women. As the body of work on the sociophonetics of American English continues to grow in scope and depth, we argue that it is important to include fundamental phonetic information as part of our catalog of regional differences and patterns of change in American English.

Cross-dialectal variation in formant dynamics of American English vowels

This study aims to characterize the nature of the dynamic spectral change in vowels in three distinct regional varieties of American English spoken in the Western North Carolina, in Central Ohio, and in Southern Wisconsin. The vowels /I, epsilon, e, ae, aI/ were produced by 48 women for a total of 1920 utterances and were contained in words of the structure /bVts/ and /bVdz/ in sentences which elicited nonemphatic and emphatic vowels. Measurements made at the vowel target (i.e., the central 60% of the vowel) produced a set of acoustic parameters which included position and movement in the F1 by F2 space, vowel duration, amount of spectral change [measured as vector length (VL) and trajectory length (TL)], and spectral rate of change. Results revealed expected variation in formant dynamics as a function of phonetic factors (vowel emphasis and consonantal context). However, for each vowel and for each measure employed, dialect was a strong source of variation in vowel-inherent spectral change. In general, the dialect-specific nature and amount of spectral change can be characterized quite effectively by position and movement in the F1 by F2 space, vowel duration, TL (but not VL which underestimates formant movement), and spectral rate of change.

Between-speaker and within-speaker variation in speech tempo of American English.

This study characterizes the speech tempo (articulation rate, excluding pauses) of two distinct varieties of American English taking into account both between-speaker and within-speaker variation. Each of 192 speakers from Wisconsin (the northern variety) and from North Carolina (the southern variety), men and women, ranging in age from children to old adults, read a set of sentences and produced a spontaneous unconstrained talk. Articulation rate in spontaneous speech was modeled using fixed-mixed effects analyses. The models explored the effects of the between-speaker factors dialect, age and gender and included each phrase and its length as a source of both between- and within-speaker variation. The major findings are: (1) Wisconsin speakers speak significantly faster and produce shorter phrases than North Carolina speakers; (2) speech tempo changes across the lifespan, being fastest for individuals in their 40s; (3) men speak faster than women and this effect is not related to the length of phrases they produce. Articulation rate in reading was slower than in speaking and the effects of gender and age also differed in reading and spontaneous speech. The effects of dialect in reading remained the same, showing again that Wisconsin speakers had faster articulation rates than did North Carolina speakers.

VOWEL DURATION IN THREE AMERICAN ENGLISH DIALECTS

The article reports on an acoustic investigation into the duration of five American English vowels, those found in hid, head, had, hayed, and hide. We compare duration across three major dialect areas: the Inland North, Midlands, and South. The results show systematic differences across all vowels studied, with the longest durations in the South and the shortest in the Inland North, with the Midlands in an intermediate but distinct position. More generally, the sample differs from and complements other work on this question by including detailed evidence from relatively small, cohesive areas, each within a different established dialect region.

Vowel change across three age groups of speakers in three regional varieties of American English

This acoustic study examines sound (vowel) change in apparent time across three successive generations of 123 adult female speakers ranging in age from 20 to 65 years old, representing three regional varieties of American English, typical of western North Carolina, central Ohio and southeastern Wisconsin. A set of acoustic measures characterized the dynamic nature of formant trajectories, the amount of spectral change over the course of vowel duration and the position of the spectral centroid. The study found a set of systematic changes to /I, ε, æ/ including positional changes in the acoustic space (mostly lowering of the vowels) and significant variation in formant dynamics (increased monophthongization). This common sound change is evident in both emphatic (articulated clearly) and nonemphatic (casual) productions and occurs regardless of dialect-specific vowel dispersions in the vowel space. The cross-generational and cross-dialectal patterns of variation found here support an earlier report by Jacewicz, Fox, and Salmons (2011) which found this recent development in these three dialect regions in isolated citation-form words. While confirming the new North American Shift in different styles of production, the study underscores the importance of addressing the stress-related variation in vowel production in a careful and valid assessment of sound change.

Variation in stop consonant voicing in two regional varieties of American English

This study is an acoustic investigation of the nature and extent of consonant voicing of the stop /b/ in two dialectal varieties of American English spoken in south-central Wisconsin and western North Carolina. The stop /b/ occurred at the juncture of two words such as small bids, in a position between two voiced sonorants, i.e. the liquid /l/ and a vowel. Twenty women participated, ten representing the Wisconsin and ten the North Carolina variety, respectively. Significant dialectal differences were found in the voicing patterns. The Wisconsin stop closures were usually not fully voiced and terminated in a complete silencefollowedbyaclosurereleasewhereasNorthCarolinaspeakersproducedmostlyfully voiced closures. Further dialectal differences included the proportion of closure voicing as a function of word emphasis. For Wisconsin speakers, the proportion of closure voicing was smallest when the word was emphasized and it was greatest in non-emphatic positions. For North Carolina speakers, the degree of word emphasis did not have an effect on the proportion of closure voicing. The results suggest different mechanisms by which closure voicing is maintained in these two dialects, pointing to active articulatory maneuvers in North Carolina speakers and passive in Wisconsin speakers.

Prosodic prominence effects on vowels in chain shifts

This study examines synchronic variation in vowels in an effort to advance our understanding of the “transmission problem” in language change, in particular, the cross-generational perseverance of vowel shifts. Seeking a connection to patterns anddirectionsofshiftsinvowelsystemsovertime,weexaminetheroleofalargely neglectedparameterofstructuredheterogeneity:prosodicprominence.ExperimentaldatafromtwoMidwesterndialectsofAmericanEnglish—centralOhioandsouthcentral Wisconsin—show that, for the vowels studied here, the changes in vowel characteristics observed under higher degrees of prosodic prominence (or greater emphasis) correspond to the changes predicted by well-established principles of chainshifting.Anacousticstudyassessesvariationinprosodicprominencebyexamining formant frequencies at multiple locations in the course of vowel duration, whichprovidesinformationaboutvowelqualitydynamics.Aperceptualstudydetermines listeners’sensitivity to the obtained acoustic variation, as manifested in specific patterns of vowel identification, confusions, and category goodness ratings. Finally, a prosodically based explanation of the transmission of sound change is described, which offers new connections between structural and social factors in sound change, notably the roles of “social affect” and speaker gender.

Cross-Dialectal Differences in Dynamic Formant Patterns in American English Vowels

This chapter provides evidence that vowel inherent spectral change (VISC) can vary systematically across dialects of the same language. The nature and use of VISC in selected “monophthongs” is examined in three distinct dialect regions in the United States. In each dialect area, the dynamic formant pattern is analyzed for five different age groups in order to observe cross-generational change in relation to specific vowel shifts and other vowel changes currently active in each dialect. The dialect regions examined included central Ohio (representing the Midland dialect), southeastern Wisconsin (representing the Inland North whose vowel system is affected by the Northern Cities Shift) and western North Carolina (representing the South whose vowel system is affected by the Southern Vowel Shift). Following a description of these dialect areas, we first introduce principles of chain shifting and the transmission problem, originally developed in the fields of sound change and sociolinguistics. Selective acoustic data are then presented for each dialect region and cross-generational patterns of vowel change are discussed. The chapter concludes that variation in formant trajectories produced between vowel onset and offset (VISC) is central to what differentiates regional variants of American English in the United States. Furthermore, a systematic variation in VISC is found in cross-generational change in acoustic characteristics of vowels within each dialect. The perceptual relevance of this acoustic variation needs to be addressed in future research.

Spectral Integration of Dynamic Cues in the Perception of Syllable-Initial Stops

The present experiments examine the potential role of auditory spectral integration and spectral center of gravity (COG) effects in the perception of initial formant transitions in the syllables [da]-[ga] and [tha]-[kha]. Of interest is whether the place distinction for stops in these syllables can be cued by a ‘virtual F3 transition’ in which the percept of a frequency transition is produced by a dynamically changing COG. Listeners perceived the virtual F3 transitions comparably with actual F3 transitions although the former were less salient a cue. However, in a separate experiment, static ‘virtual F3 bursts’ were not as effective as actual F3 bursts in cueing the alveolar-velar place distinction. These results indicate that virtual F3 transitions can provide phonetic information to the perceptual system and that auditory spectral integration (completed by the central auditory system) may play a significant role in speech perception.

Vowel development in an emergent Mandarin-English bilingual child: a longitudinal study

This longitudinal case study documents the emergence of bilingualism in a young monolingual Mandarin boy on the basis of an acoustic analysis of his vowel productions recorded via a picture-naming task over 20 months following his enrollment in an all-English (L2) preschool at the age of 3;7. The study examined (1) his initial L2 vowel space, (2) the process of L1-L2 separation, and (3) his L1 vowel system in relation to L2. The child initially utilized his L1 base in building the L2 vowel system. The L1-L2 separation started from a drastic restructuring of his working vowel space to create maximal contrast between the two languages. Meanwhile, L1 developmental processes and influence of L2 on L1 were also in effect. The developmental profile of this child uncovered strategies sequential bilingual children may use to restructure their phonetic space and construct a new system of contrasts in L2.