Western New England English
Western New England English refers to the
Western New England English is relatively difficult for most American laypersons and even dialectologists to identify by any "distinct" accent when compared to its popularly recognized neighbors (
Vocabulary
Vocabulary features that predominate in Western New England English include grinder for sub (submarine sandwich),[12] and tag sale for garage sale (predominant in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts).[13]
Overview of phonology
Some Western New England speakers show the "generating conditions"
The English of Western New England in fact shows many sharp differences throughout rather than one uniform accent.[9] In 2001, Charles Boberg, discussing that Western New England English was a likely direct influence on the Inland Northern English of the Great Lakes region, still identified as many as four or five English sub-regional accents within Western New England itself, based on data from the late 1990s:[11]
- Northwestern Vermont (centered on Canadian Shift of Standard Canadian English.
- Southwestern Vermont (centered on Northern Cities Vowel Shiftby producing a cot–caught merger to [ɑ̈].
- Western Massachusetts (centered on Northern Cities Vowel Shift, except that it tends towards a cot–caught merger to [ɑ][contradictory], which is especially completed among younger speakers.
- Central Connecticut (centered on Northern Cities Vowel Shift.
- Coastal Connecticut (centered on New Haven), in the above respects, appears to have more in common with New York City English, including a clear absence of the cot–caught merger.
Northwestern New England English
Northwestern New England English, sometimes labeled as a Vermont accent, is the most complete or advanced Western New England English variety in terms of the cot–caught merger, occurring largely everywhere north of Northampton, Massachusetts, towards [ɑ].[18] Today, speakers documented in Burlington (northwestern Vermont) and Rutland (southwestern Vermont) show consistent fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/, therefore towards [ɑ̈~a], in words like car or barn. The first element of /oʊ/ (e.g. in "goat") is similar to [o̞ʊ~ɔʊ] with a low and lax first element, and sometimes with no glide as monophthongal [o̞].[19]
Burlington
Northwestern Vermont (centered on
Rural Vermont
Since the mid-twentieth century, Vermont speakers have largely avoided stigmatized local features, and now follow the rhotic r of the rest of Western New England. However, before this time, the eastern edge of Vermont spoke
Rutland
Southwestern Vermont (centered on
Southwestern New England English
Southwestern New England English is centered primarily around
Regarding the cot–caught merger, Southwestern New England speech has historically lacked the merger, before entering a transitional state of the merger in the mid-1900s.[30] A "cot–caught approximation" now prevails especially in Springfield and western Massachusetts, but is variable from one speaker to the next with no apparent age-based correlation, except that the youngest speakers now are tending to demonstrate a full merger.[31] Local, especially working-class speakers of southwestern Connecticut (especially Greater Bridgeport and New Haven) and the Albany area of New York State, strongly influenced by nearby New York City dialect, continue to resist the cot–caught merger.
Hudson Valley
Though not belonging geographically to New England,
Notes
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 212.
- ^ Dinkin, Aaron (2010). "The Present-Day Dialectological Status of the Hudson Valley". Talk presented at the International Linguistic Association's 55th annual conference, New Paltz, N.Y. Handout.
- ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 143.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 227.
- ^ Boberg (2001), pp. 19–20.
- ^ Boberg (2001), p. 23. "All seven of the Springfield speakers showed a reduction in their perceptual distinction between the [cot–caught] vowels."
- ^ Boberg (2001), pp. 3, 12.
- ISBN 978-1-4832-9476-6.
- ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 210.
- ^ a b Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (1997). "Dialects of the United States". A National Map of The Regional Dialects of American English. University of Pennsylvania.
- ^ a b Boberg (2001), pp. 24–25.
- ^ Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "What do you call the long sandwich that contains cold cuts, lettuce, and so on?" The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
- ^ Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "Which of these terms do you prefer for a sale of unwanted items on your porch, in your yard, etc.?" The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
- ^ Boberg (2001), pp. 26–27.
- ^ Labov, William (1991). "The three dialects of English". In Penelope Eckert (ed.). New ways of analyzing sound change. Academic Press.
- ^ Boberg (2001), p. 28.
- ^ Boberg (2001), p. 26.
- ^ Seven of the eight Vermont speakers in a recent study from Labov, Ash, and Boberg fully merged the two vowels: Nagy, Naomi; Roberts, Julie (2004). "New England phonology". In Edgar Schneider; Kate Burridge; Bernd Kortmann; Rajend Mesthrie; Clive Upton (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. p. 2591.
- ^ Nagy, Naomi; Roberts, Julie (2004). "New England Phonology". University of Toronto (online). pp. 260–261.
- ^ Stanford, Leddy-Cecere & Baclawski Jr. (2012), p. 161.
- ^ Walsh, Molly. "Vermont Accent: Endangered Species?". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 2007-11-20.
- ^ a b MacQuarrie, Brian (12 February 2004). "Taking bah-k Vermont". The Boston Globe.
- ^ Stanford (2019), pp. 53, 270.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-506905-1.
- ^ Boberg (2001), p. 9.
- Washington Post.
- ^ Boberg (2001), p. 17.
- ^ a b Boberg (2001), p. 19.
- ^ Boberg (2001), p. 11.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 25–26, 61.
- ^ Boberg (2001), pp. 25–26. "Springfield, and perhaps western Massachusetts in general, is basically Northern but shows a reduction of contrast between the low-back vowels, which may be tending toward merger among the youngest speakers in that area."
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 123, 261.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 188.
References
- Boberg, Charles (2001). "The Phonological Status of Western New England". American Speech. 76 (1): 3–29. S2CID 143486914.
- ISBN 3-11-016746-8
- Stanford, James N.; Leddy-Cecere, Thomas A.; Baclawski Jr., Kenneth P. (2012). "Farewell To The Founders: Major Dialect Changes Along The East-West New England Border". American Speech. 87 (2): 126–169. .
- Stanford, James (2019). New England English: Large-scale acoustic sociophonetics and dialectology. Oxford University Press.
- ISBN 0-52128541-0.