Standard US English Dialect?

[Dennis Preston]

Paul,

You are right on; young MI respondents grouped "cool" with with
"good" and "pool" with "boot" in a test we did some years ago. What
valley in MI can they be from? Stuff up here looks pretty flat to me.

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>For /u/-the moon, spoon, boot, hoop, do, too group.  Possibly brewed,
>dude, new etc if there's no contrast between /u/ and /Iu~ju/.
>For /o/-the coat, road, cone, hope, poke, go, no, grow group.
>
>I'm from much farther north and natively lack fronting of both of
>these vowels before underlying (and often vocalized) /l/--in pool,
>school, stool; coal, stole, pole, but have some fronting otherwise.
>I don't know if MD has back vowels there or not.  If it does,
>behavior before /l/ would be a good test of whether you have Midland
>fronting or Valley Girl fronting, which is sew kewl, and fronts /u/
>before /l/.  There are probably lexically-conditioned phenomena too;
>I could conceive of cool having fronting and stool not having it, or
>even of cool= "good, in  fashion, etc." having it and cool = "sort of
>cold" not having it.
>
>Yours,
>Paul
>
>
>On Apr 15, 2008, at 9:41 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  ---------
>>
>>  At 3:43 AM -0400 4/15/08, Paul Johnston wrote:
>>>  Do you get some localized features like /o/- and /u/-fronting with
>>>  those DC suburbanites?
>>
>>  What sort of words are you thinking about with these features?  I can
>>  do some field research if I know what to look for.
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>>  It's quite pronounced in both MD (including
>>>  Balmer and ITS suburbs) and VA, and seems to go up the social scale a
>>>  fair bit, especially among female speakers.
>>>
>>>  Yours,
>>>  Paul
>>>  On Apr 15, 2008, at 1:41 AM, Dennis Preston wrote:
>>>
>>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>  Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>>>  Subject:      Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>>>  --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>  --
>>>>  ---------
>>>>
>>>>  Indeed. I have three nephews who grew up right on the Bethesda
>>>>  border
>>>>  with DC. WI mother and CA father. They were distinct from both (no
>>>>  NCS; no low-back merger) but otherwise unremarkable. Odd I never
>>>>  thought much about them. Plenty of tapes of the little buggers (now
>>>>  full-grown); maybe I'll give an ear (well, a machine).
>>>>
>>>>  dInIs
>>>>
>>>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>  -----------------------
>>>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>>  Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
>>>>>  Subject:      Standard US English Dialect?
>>>>>  -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>  --
>>>>>  ----------
>>>>>
>>>>>  DC is also such a mixing bowl that one tends to get a lot of
>>>>>  leveling, right?
>>>>>  Particularly in the suburbs. Over the years, when I couldn't place
>>>>>  a white
>>>>>  Duke student's accent, I would guess "DC suburbs" and very often
>>>>>  got it right.
>>>>>  (African American and even Asian students were generally much more
>>>>>  difficult to
>>>>>  place, for a variety of sociolinguistic reasons.) Of course, Duke
>>>>>  has a lot
>>>>>  of students from the DC suburbs, but Duke also gets a lot of
>>>>>  students from
>>>>>  suburban Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc.
>  >>>>
>>>>>  In a message dated 4/14/08 11:45:24 AM, preston at MSU.EDU writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>>   Yes, DC always does surprisingly well, but the East Coaster the
>>>>>>  South
>>>>>>   is the better it does as well. SC higher than GA, GA higher than
>>>>>>  AL,
>>>>>>   etc....We actually have some qualitative evidence for this;
>>>>>>  some of
>>>>>>   the fieldworkers asked respondents why they ranked the DC area so
>>>>>>   high, and many said that they figured good English was spoke
>>>>>>  in the
>>>>>>   capital. This seemed truer of southern and south midland
>>>>>>  respondents
>>>>>>   than of northern ones (who know they speak the best English).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   dInIs
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  --
>>>>  Dennis R. Preston
>>>>  University Distinguished Professor
>>>>  Department of English
>>>>  Morrill Hall 15-C
>>>>  Michigan State University
>>>>  East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>>>>
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>>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
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>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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