Vowel Pronunciation as an Ethnic Marker: Pacific Islander Teens in Salt Lake County, Utah

Lisa Morgan Johnson
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Abstract

This paper analyzes word list recordings from 37 Pacific Islander (PI) and 40 European American (EA) teens from two Salt Lake County (SLCo) high schools to address three questions: (1) Do the teens in the study participate in the linguistic practices previously described for Utah and for the American West? (2) Do EAs and PIs pattern together, or is there a distinctive PI pattern in SLCo? (3) How does the ethnic composition of the school context affect ethnic-based vowel patterns? The analysis focuses on a subset of vowel features associated with the West: the Low-Back-Merger Shift (LBMS) and the fronting of non-low back vowels. Results show the Utah teens employing many LBMS features, with statistical differences based on gender, ethnic group, and school (with school acting as a proxy for ethnic diversity). Non-low back vowel positions are generally consistent with historical baselines. BOAT vowel positions are farther back for PI participants, and there is a small difference in BUT vowel position based on gender, ethnicity, and school. The results of this ethnographically grounded study demonstrate how small phonetic differences may help construct ethnic identity and why it is important to include more participants of color in dialectal research.
作为种族标记的元音发音:犹他州盐湖县的太平洋岛民青少年
本文分析了来自盐湖郡(SLCo)两所高中的 37 名太平洋岛民(PI)和 40 名欧洲裔美国人(EA)青少年的单词表录音,以解决三个问题:(1)研究中的青少年是否参与了之前描述的犹他州和美国西部的语言实践?(2) 在 SLCo,EA 和 PI 是一起出现的,还是有独特的 PI 模式?(3) 学校环境中的民族构成如何影响基于民族的元音模式?分析的重点是与西部相关的元音特征子集:低后合并移位(LBMS)和非低后元音前置。结果显示,犹他州的青少年使用了许多 LBMS 特征,并根据性别、种族群体和学校(学校是种族多样性的代表)的不同而存在统计差异。非低回元音位置与历史基线基本一致。PI 参与者的 BOAT元音位置较靠后,而 BUT元音位置则因性别、种族和学校的不同而略有差异。这项以民族志为基础的研究结果表明了微小的语音差异如何有助于构建民族身份,也说明了在方言研究中纳入更多有色人种参与者的重要性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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