Regional linguistic variation is a widely known characteristic of American English, with the American South as one of the many foci. However, in much of this literature, Appalachia is lumped together with other Southern varieties. Further, the vast sociolinguistic literature has documented intra-regional variation along socio-indexical lines. However, most variation studies have focused on vocalic variation at the expense of other sources of variation, which may have different patterns and meanings. The present study was designed to explore intonational variation in conversational speech in two varieties of American English: Appalachian and Southern. Additionally, the intra-regional variation in intonation present in Appalachian English was explored considering the rootedness (local place-based attachment) of speakers. The results revealed significant effects of regional dialect on both the quantitative and qualitative realization of pitch accent. Further, intra-regional variation was significantly impacted by socio-indexical aspects, including rootedness, of individual speakers. The findings from this study demonstrate that both region and socio-indexical features are expressed intonationally and also provide motivation for additional exploration of intonational variation across and within the regional varieties of American English.
References
1.
Abramson
, R.
, and Haskell
, J.
, eds. (2006
). The Encyclopedia of Appalachia
(University of Tennessee Press
, Knoxville, TN
).2.
Agha
, A.
(2003
). “The social life of a cultural value
,” Lang. Commun.
23
, 231
–273
.3.
4.
Arvaniti
, A.
, and Garding
, G.
(2007
). “Dialectal variation in the rising accents of American English
,” in Papers in Laboratory Phonology 9
, edited by J.
Cole
and J. H.
Hualde
(Mouton de Gruyter
, New York)
, pp. 547
–576
.5.
Bates
, D.
, Maechler
, M.
, Bolker
, B.
, and Walker
, S.
(2015
). “lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes
,” R package.6.
Beckman
, M. E.
, and Elam
, G. A.
(1997
). “Guidelines for ToBI labelling
,” https://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/research/phonetics/E_ToBI/ (Last viewed January 1, 2020).7.
Beckman
, M. E.
, Hirschberg
, J.
, and Shattuck-Hufnagel
, S.
(2005
). “The original ToBI system and the evolution of the ToBI framework
,” in Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing
, edited by S.-A.
Jun
(Oxford University Press
, Oxford
).8.
Bernstein
, C.
(2006
). “Drawing out the /ai/: Dialect boundaries and /ai/ variation
,” in Language Variation and Change in the American Midland: A New Look at “Heartland” English
, edited by T. E.
Murray
and B. L.
Simon
(John Benjamins
, Philadelphia, PA
).9.
Botinis
, A.
(2000
). Intonation: Analysis, Modelling and Technology
(Kluwer Academic Publishers
, Dordrecht, Netherlands
).10.
Burdin
, R. S.
(2016
). “Variation in form and function of Jewish English intonation
,” Ph.D. thesis, The Ohio State University
.11.
Burdin
, R. S.
, Holliday
N. R.
, and Reed
, P. E.
(2018
). “Rising above the standard: Variation in L+H* contour use across 5 varieties of American English
,” in Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody
, pp. 354
–358
.12.
Carver
, C.
(1987
). American Regional Dialects: A Word Study
(The University of Michigan Press
, Ann Arbor)
.13.
Clopper
, C.
, and Smiljanic
, R.
(2011
). “Effects of gender and regional dialect on prosodic patterns in American English
,” J. Phonetics
39
, 237
–245
.14.
Cox
, R.
(2006
). “Homeplace
,” in The Encyclopedia of Appalachia
, edited by R.
Abramson
and J.
Haskell
(The University of Tennessee Press
, Knoxville, TN
), pp. 219
–220
.15.
Gilles
, P.
, and Peters
, J.
(2004
). Regional Variation in Intonation
(Max Niemeyer Verlag
, Tübingen
), pp. 9
–31
.16.
Godfrey
, J.
, Holliman
, E.
, and McDaniel
, J.
(1992
). “Switchboard: Telephone speech corpus for research and development
,” in IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
, Vol. 1, pp. 517
–520
.17.
Grabe
, E.
(1998a
). “Comparative intonational phonology: English and German
,” in MPI Series in Psycholinguistics 7
(Ponsen en Looien
, Wageningen
).18.
Grabe
, E.
(1998b
). “Pitch accent realisation in English and German
,” J. Phonetics
26
, 129
–144
.19.
Grabe
, E.
(2004
). “Intonational variation in urban dialects of English spoken in the British Isles
,” in Regional Variation in Intonation
, edited by P.
Gilles
and J.
Peters
(Max Niemeyer Verlag
, Tübingen
), pp. 9
–31
.20.
Grabe
, E.
, and Post
, B.
(2002
). “Intonation variation in the British Isles
,” in Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2002
, edited by B.
Bel
and I.
Marlin
, Laboratoire Parole et Langue, Aix-en-Provence, France, pp. 343
–346
.21.
Grabe
, E.
, Post
, B.
, Nolan
, F.
, and Farrar
, K.
(2000
). “Pitch accent realization in four varieties of British English
,” J. Phonetics
28
, 161
–185
.22.
Greene
, R.
(2006
). “Pitch accents in Appalachian English
,” Unpublished qualifying paper, Stanford University.23.
Greene
, R.
(2010
). “Language, ideology, and identity in rural Eastern Kentucky
,” Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University
.24.
Grice
, M.
, D'Imperio
, M.
, Savino
, M.
, and Avesani
, C.
(2005
). “Strategies for intonation labelling across varieties of Italian
,” in Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing
, edited by S.-A.
Jun
(Oxford University Press
, Oxford
), pp. 362
–389
.25.
Grønnum
, N.
(1990
). “Prosodic parameters in a variety of regional Danish standard languages, with a view towards Swedish and German
,” Phonetica
47
, 182
–214
.26.
Gussenhoven
, C.
(2000
). “The lexical tone contrast of Roermond Dutch in Optimality Theory
,” in Prosody: Theory and Experiment
, edited by M.
Horne
(Kluwer
, Dordrecht, Netherlands
), pp. 129
–167
.27.
Gussenhoven
, C.
, and van der Vliet
, P.
(1999
). “The phonology of tone and intonation in the Dutch dialect of Venlo
,” J. Ling.
35
, 99
–135
.28.
Haddican
, B.
, Foulkes
, P.
, Hughes
, V.
, and Richards
, H.
(2013
). “Interaction of social and linguistic constraints on two vowel changes in northern England
,” Lang. Variation Change
25
, 371
–403
.29.
Hall
, J. S.
(1942
). “The phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech
,” Am. Speech
17
(2.2
), 1
–110
.30.
Hazen
, K.
(1997
). “Past and present be in Southern ethnolinguistic boundaries
,” Ph.D. thesis, North Carolina State University
.31.
Holliday
, N. R.
(2016
). “Intonational variation, linguistic style, and the black/biracial experience
,” Ph.D. thesis, New York University
.32.
Jacewicz
, E.
, and Fox
, R. A.
(2015
). “Intrinsic fundamental frequency of vowels is moderated by regional dialect
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
138
, EL405
–EL410
.33.
Jones
, L.
(1975
). “Appalachian values
,” in Voices From the Hills: Selected Readings of Southern Appalachia
, edited by R. J.
Higgs
and A. N.
Manning
(Ungar Publishing Company
, New York
).34.
35.
Jun
, S.-A.
(2005
). Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing
(Oxford University Press
, Oxford
).36.
Jun
, S.-A.
(2014
). Prosodic Typology II: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing
(Oxford University Press
, Oxford
).37.
Kurath
, H.
, and McDavid
, R. I.
, Jr
. (1961
). in Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States
(University of Michigan Press
, Ann Arbor
).38.
Labov
, W.
(1963
). “The social motivation of a sound change
,” Word
19
, 273
–309
.39.
Labov
, W.
, Ash
, S.
, and Boberg
, C.
(2006
). Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Sound Change
(Mouton de Gruyter
, New York
).40.
Ladd
, D. R.
, Schepman
, A.
, White
, L.
, Quarmby
, L. M.
, and Stackhouse
, R.
(2009
). “Structural and dialectal effects on pitch peak alignment in two varieties of British English
,” J. Phonetics
37
, 145
–161
.41.
McLarty
, J.
(2018
). “African American language and European American English intonation variation over time in the American South,” Am
. Speech
93
(1
), 32
–78
.42.
Pederson
, L.
, McDaniel
, S. L.
, and Adams
, C. M.
, eds. (1986–93
). Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States
, Volume 7 (University of Georgia Press
, Athens, GA
).43.
Pierrehumbert
, J.
, and Hirschberg
, J.
(1990
). “The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse
,” in Intentions in Communication
, edited by P. R.
Cohen
, J.
Morgan
, and M. E.
Pollack
(MIT Press
, Cambridge, MA
), pp. 271
–311
.44.
Prieto
, P.
, D'Imperio
, M.
, and Fivela
, B. G.
(2005
). “Pitch accent alignment in romance: Primary and secondary associations with metrical structure
,” Lang. Speech
48
(4
), 359
–396
. 45.
R Core Team
. (2015
). “R: A language and environment for statistical computing
,” R Foundation for Statistical Computing.46.
Reed
, P. E.
(2012
). “Monophthongization and Southern Appalachian identity: Change over a lifetime
,” Poster presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 41.47.
Reed
, P. E.
(2014
). “Inter- and intra-generational monophthongization and Southern Appalachian Identity
,” Southern J. Ling.
38
(1
), 159
–193
.48.
Reed
, P. E.
(2016
). “Sounding Appalachian: /aI/ monophthongization, rising pitch accents, and rootedness
,” Ph.D. thesis, University of South Carolina
.49.
Reed
, P. E.
(2018a
). “Appalachia, monophthongization, and intonation: Rethinking tradition
,” in Language Variation in the New South: Contemporary Perspectives on Change and Variation
, edited by J.
Reaser
, E.
Wilbanks
, K.
Wojckik
, and W.
Wolfram
(University of North Carolina Press
, Chapel Hill, NC
), pp. 97
–112
.50.
Reed
, P. E.
(2018b
). “The importance of Appalachian identity: A case study in rootedness
,” Am. Speech
93
(3–4
), 409
–424
.51.
Tagliamonte
, S.
(2006
). Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation
(Cambridge University Press
, Cambridge)
.52.
Thomas
, E. R.
(2001
). “An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English
,” No. 85 in Publication of the American Dialect Society
(Duke University Press
, Durham, NC
).53.
Thomas
, E. R.
(2011
). Sociophonetics: An Introduction
(Palgrave Macmillan
, New York)
.54.
van Leyden
, K.
(2004
). “Prosodic characteristics of Orkney and Shetland dialects
,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Leiden
.55.
Venable
, S.
(2013
). How to Tawlk and Rite Good
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
, North Charleston, SC)
.56.
57.
Wolfram
, W.
, and Schilling
, N.
(2016
). American English: Dialects and Variation
(Blackwell
, Malden, MA
), 3rd ed.© 2020 Acoustical Society of America.
2020
Acoustical Society of America
You do not currently have access to this content.