30.231, Books: Speaking from the Heartland: Strelluf

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-231. Tue Jan 15 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.231, Books: Speaking from the Heartland: Strelluf

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Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2019 22:21:56
From: Charles Carson [carson at duke.edu]
Subject: Speaking from the Heartland: Strelluf

 


Title: Speaking from the Heartland 
Subtitle: The Midland Vowel System of Kansas City 
Series Title: Publication of the American Dialect Society 103  

Publication Year: 2018 
Publisher: American Dialect Society/Duke University Press
	   http://dukeupress.edu
	

Book URL: https://www.dukeupress.edu/speaking-from-the-heartland 


Author: Christopher Strelluf

Paperback: ISBN:  9781478005704 Pages: 220 Price: U.S. $ 20


Abstract:

This book rigorously examines the vowel system of Kansas City, a large
metropolitan area in the center of the United States that typifies the
American Midland dialect region. Drawing on acoustic measurements of more than
140,000 vowels recorded from sociolinguistic interviews with 50 Kansas
Citians, it traces a half-century of sound change from 1955 to 1999. Results
confirm findings from previous studies for Kansas Citians born in the 1950s,
but also reveal a series of recent innovations that challenge Kansas City’s
characterization as a Midland dialect city—or more broadly challenge the
characterization of the Midland dialect. Specific features examined include
the low-back vowel merger, the pre-nasal merger of /ɪ/ and /ɛ/, the retraction
of front lax vowels, the fronting of back vowels, and the allophonic raising
of /ɑɪ/ before voiceless consonants. In examining these features in Kansas
City, this volume also challenges explanations that have been offered for them
elsewhere in American dialect research. In particular, it shows that front lax
vowel retraction in Kansas City does not operate as a drag chain initiated by
the low-back merger, and that the low-back vowel merger is unlikely to have
spread into the city from the West. As such, this volume updates knowledge
about one speech community, but also contributes more generally to studies in
the phonetics and phonology of American Englishes.
 



Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
                     Phonetics
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=133693




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