Standard US English Dialect?

Tue Apr 15 16:50:11 UTC 2008

I see that too--in fact, I hear an unrounded vowel here quite often,
something like a barred capital I.  It's really striking when it's
elongated.  Maybe from Grand Valley or Kalamazoo Valley (injoke)?

Yours,
Paul
On Apr 15, 2008, at 12:26 PM, Dennis Preston wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> 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
>>>>>  -----------------------
>>>>>  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
>>>>>
>>>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
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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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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org