Page 46 - Fall2020

TRENDS IN SOUTHERN US ENGLISH
dictionaries and travel brochures. For example, in “a dixie dictsunary” written by Powers and Powers (1975), Southern states are presented as if they share the same Southern Eng- lish variety, with the following excerpt illustrating Southern pronunciation through nonstandard orthography (standard orthography is provided for the ease of reading; listen to Multimedia4 at acousticstoday.org/shportmm as well).
Lairnin’ the stayuts, az well az how to pro-nounce them cowreckly, (Learning the states, as well as how to pro- nounce them correctly,)
iz absolutely vital to visitahs in the Sowth, the Sowth Ah sed! (is absolutely vital to visitors in the South, the South I said!)
If yawl should git lost ‘n hav to ask direcshuns, (If y’all should get lost and have to ask directions,)
why we wudn’t hav the foggiest ideah whatchua wuz talkin’ about... (why we wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about...)
’n we wud be unable to tell yawl wheah to go like we wud like to do! (and we would be unable to tell y’all where to go like we would like to do!)
Some of this colorful, nonstandard orthography illus- trates characteristics that have been documented in acoustic research on Southern speech, for example, /ai/- monophthongization as in “Ah” for I, breaking vowels as in “stayuts” for states, and changes in vowel quality as in “git” for get. Other orthographic choices character- ize speech of many communities that are not necessarily Southern. Examples include dropping ‘g’s as in “talkin” for talking and simplifying sequences of consonants as in “cowreckly” for correctly. Yet other choices seems to be just a caricature, signaling the nonstandardness of speech and making it difficult to interpret in sociopho- netic terms. It is clear, however, that Southernness in the popular imagination is attributed to white speakers, especially older ones who do not code switch between the Southern and Standard accents, as illustrated in much of the media and recognized in the speech of celebrities from the South (e.g., see performers such as Dolly Parton at bit.ly/36OihbO or Leslie Jordan at bit.ly/3du4xVX). This white Southernness is propelled and self-propels, generously supplying standardized acoustic indicators to both outsiders and insiders.
The Evolving Diversity of Southern United States English
Anyone who has spent time in the South would readily attest that standardized indicators of Southern speech described above are overgeneralizations. In reality, vowel, consonant, and intonation patterns differ among Southern subregions and among populations within the same subregion (the same can be said about other areas, as language variation exists even in relatively small communities). The distribution of Southern elements in the speech of the different Southern populations and the perception of Southernness is discussed next.
Distribution of Unique Southern
Speech Markers
The probability of occurrence of any sound patterns unique to the South significantly varies among differ- ent populations of Southern speakers. In the ANAE, for example, two unique sound patterns are postu- lated to define the region, the Southern Vowel Shift and the Back Upglide Shift (Labov et al., 2006, p. 240- 241). More specifically, however, the criterion of 20% of /ai/-monophthongization before voiced consonants (as in words tide, rise) is used to define the outer linguistic boundaries of the South. This criterion maps the South “from North Carolina in the east to Texas in the West, and from the Ohio River in the north to the Southern tip of Florida in the South” (p. 240). Compared with a folk definition (Powers and Powers, 1975) or previous linguis- tic surveys (Carver, 1987, as cited in Labov et al., 2006), this approach extends Southern boundaries to partially include a couple of other states (Figure 2). At the same time, Southern areas that do not fit the main linguistic cri- terion for the region outline are duly noted in the ANAE, including Atlanta (in Georgia), Austin (in Texas), New Orleans (in Louisiana), and most of the state of Florida. It is also noted that /ai/-monophthongization before voice- less consonants (as in words tight, rice) is associated with lower socioeconomic status of speakers (occurring more frequently in rural speech throughout the South) and that /ai/-monophthongization before sonorant consonants (as in words time, tile, tiny) occurs outside of the South’s borders. Thus, the ANAE shows that the degree of the /ai/- monophthongization already considerably varied within the region in the second half of the 20th century.
Other research findings further expand the ANAE notes on significant variation in the occurrence of this hallmark element of Southern speech. Data collected in the last 25
46 Acoustics Today • Fall 2020