Mapping Southern spoken dialect features with geographic information systems

We use GIS mapping to analyze spatial trends in spoken language, testing how features identified as part of the ‘Southern dialect' by the Atlas of North American English (ANAE) are realized in the Digital Archive of Southern Speech (DASS). We analyze mergers, diphthongization, monophthongization, fronting, g-dropping, and rhoticity. Acoustic data from DASS was analyzed using R, generating feature-appropriate summary statistics. GIS analysis was conducted with GeoDa, QGIS, and ArcGIS Online. Spatial analysis used the Local Moran's I method to identify geographic clusters of similar values. Generally, DASS data agrees with ANAE's descriptions. However, POOL-PULL are not consistently merged, unlike in ANAE, except for a cluster in Eastern Tennessee. /cI/-monophthongization also varies: averages indicate the vowel was still fairly diphthongized, while spatial autocorrelation finds monophthongization in Central Tennessee and Atlanta. /oΩ/ appears to front only weakly; however, the greatest fronting is found in Florida. We find high rates of g-dropping and rhoticity, but mapping and analysis for these features reveals clusters of more g-dropping in Eastern Tennessee, less rhoticity along Florida's Gulf Coast, and more rhoticity in Northern Mississippi. Our analysis partially corroborates ANAE's description, suggesting that Southern speech changed between the DASS interviews and the later publication of ANAE.