Vowel Transformations in Southern U.S. Dialects

Historical and social factors behind the development of the varieties

From the beginning of the 20th century, the different parts of the Southern United States went through major changes in sound, in a period where an increasingly unified, region-wide sound system was different. This was markedly different from the sound systems that were common in the dialects in the 19th century. Today, the South, as a dialect region includes different features of pronunciation, which are popularly recognised across the US as a Southern accent. It is worth noting that there exists that concerns potential differences on the basis of different factors like the exact sub-region of a speaker, their age, ethnicity, among others. This phonological phenomena is focused on development of a sound system of the 20th century Southern dialect that altogether supersedes the older patterns of the previous Southern regional patterns. A chain shift concerned with vowel shifts is completed fully, or occurring, in the majority of Southern dialects and that is especially those of the 20th century, and in the “Inland South” at the most advanced stage as well as bigger parts of central and northern Texas. Stage 1 dominating the entire Southern region triggers the 3-stage chain vowel movement, and this is followed by stage 2 covering the bigger part of the area and the 3rd stage is only concentrated among the speakers of the two regions that are aforementioned. Stage 1 is believed to have begun in just a few of the Southern accents in the early years of the 19th century and was characterised by a glide weakening of /aɪ/ to [aɛ] or [aə]. It was however, still considered as being incomplete or absent in the mid-19 century before it rapidly expanded. It is worth noting that the glide weakening is today the norm of pronunciation across the Southern States (Trudgill and Hannah, 2013). The first stage involves the transition of the diphthong towards a long vowel that is glideless, such that for instance, a word ride is pronounced in such a way that other American English speakers end up hearing as rad or rod. For the majority of the dialects in the south, the Stage 1 shift is now considered as now complete. Particularly, speakers from the South exhibit the shift in Stage 1 at the end of words and also before consonants being voiced, where the glide is retained in the diphthong. The removal of aI in the first stage leaves open a lower space for eI that makes way for Stage 2 characterised by the diphthong into a lower starting position such that it either sounds lower or increasingly retracted or both (ɛɪ). At the same time, when ae is pushed to the vicinity, it is effectively pushed into a higher and fronter position and it goes on to occupy the e area that was previously eI vicinity. A proper example of this is that to other speakers of English, yep’s pronunciation in the South sounds like yay-up. It is worth noting that those Southern accents whose origins were from those cities that were recognised as having the wealthiest and having the greatest influence, including Richmond, Virginia, Macon, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Atlanta did not take part in Stage 2 traditionally.

In Stage 3, through the same pushing and pulling domino effects that are described under the first two stages, /I/ and /i/ follow suit and possibly become diphthongs that whose nuclei switch positions. I could possibly end up being pushed into a diphthong whose beginning is raised while I could end up being pushed into a diphthong whose beginning is lowered. A proper example of this is that the pronunciation of fin sounds in the South, sounds to other speakers of English like fee-in. On the other hand, meal sounds like mih-eel. Stage 3, just like with the other stages of the Southern Shift, is most common in syllables that are heavily stressed and particularly so among speakers from the Inland South.

The three different stages of the Southern Shift lead to the breaking of the front pure vowels into gliding vowels, effectively leading to the sounding of one-syllable words like pet to sound as though they have two syllables (Cogo, 2012). Southern drawl is the name given to the gliding phenomenon of the short front vowels. All the “short a, e and I” vowels are affected, and this leads to the development of a glide up from their original starting point to (j) and then back down to a schwa vowel.

Generally, Australian English is considered as sharing its phonemic inventory with Southern British English through its existing historical connection with the British Isles` dialects, in the early 19th century and also in the late 18th century (Mulder et al. 2009). Therefore, the basis of the Australian accent is Southern British. As a result of this, English speakers from other parts of the world, especially America, often end up confusing Australians for people from Southern Britain. They mistake the Australian accent for the cockney accent. There is fair acceptance that people from South Australia speak differently to some extent from people drawn from other parts of Australia, with the way South Australians make ‘A’ and ‘L’ sound being recognized as a distinguishing marker of the local lingo. For instance, a person from South Australia would pronounce the word ‘chance; with an ‘ah’ sound, while interstaters have a probability of being increasingly inclined towards making the ‘A’ sound that is commonly used in the word ‘ant.’

The common theory is that the first European inhabitants in Australia caused the sticking around of the increasingly proper British pronunciations. These early inhabitants were not convicts but free settlers. These free settlers could possibly have influenced the cause and effect in language change among the Australians. The preservation of British and German heritage in South Australia is evident from their accent (Leitner, 2013). Therefore, it is safe to say that the British people who discovered Australia are the same people who introduced English in the continent. Following the establishment of colonies, the different children who were subsequently born were exposed to different English language dialects and these are the dialects that went on to become the roots of Australian English.

For Southern Australia speakers of English, there are also common tendencies for some /I/ sounds to become vowels (/I/ vocalization, as compared to speakers from other states/ for instance, in South Australia, the word “Hurled” has a semi vocalized /I/, which leads to its pronunciation as “herwld,” while across the other states, the pronunciation of the /I/ is in the form of a consonant. The “I” is observed to be semi vocalized, for instance, “milk” ends up sounding like “miuwlk.”

There are words that are words that are attributable to Southern Australians that are also used in other places in Australia. However, the majority of the genuine words are used throughout the state. Among these words are those that are German in origin, that is, they are reflective of the origins of the majority of the early settlers. A good example of this is the local word “butcher,” that has German origins and that refers to a 200 ml glass of beer. This is one word that is believed to have been derived from the German word “becher”, which implies a mug or a cup (Butcher, 2006).

It is worth noting that across Australia, the English pronunciations vary from region to region and this variance is dependent on the type of the vowel that comes before the sounds nd, ns, nt, nce, nch, and mple. In some of the words like “branch” “demand” “sample” and “plant” most of the Australians utilise the flat /æ/ TRAP vowel. There are however, quite very many people in South Australia who use the broad /a:/ BATH vowel in the words. For instance, a vast majority of the residents of Adelaide pronounce graph with an /a:/, while up to 100% of the residents of Hobart use the /æ/ (Riggs and Due, 2011). Owing to the prevalence of the South Australian broad A, it evident that the South Australian accent is closer to Cultivated Australian English, as compared to other dialects.

In Southern British English, the vowels fall into phonological groups, which are in accordance to phonological behaviour and phonetic nature. These include short-lax vowels and long-tense vowels, which are further broken down to linking-r vowels and diphthongs. Short-lax, or checked vowels are those that require a following consonant, except for unstressed schwa, which can have a word at the end. For long-tense vowels, a following consonant is not necessary, and these could possibly have a word at the end. At no instance do linking-r vowels come before vowels in the same word. However, when before a vowel in the next word, it is possible to use the linking r, for instance, safari, far, and farm.

Differences among the different varieties of English

This essay analyses three different videos obtained from YouTube that provide a perspective of the English spoken in three different parts of the world, the United States, Southern United Kingdom, and Southern Australia. The video analysed for the Southern British context is titled “Lorraine Thorpe: Britain’s Youngest Female Double Murderer (True Crime Documentary). For the American context, is an interview of Bill Gates and is titled “Bill Gates opens up about his divorce and Jeffrey Epstein.” Additionally, for the context of Southern Australians, the video comes from the series Stories of the South and is the first episode of the first season, titled “Outback Aviator.” Close analysis of these thee videos reveals that there are rather close similarities between the Australian English and British English spelling. However, the spelling of the majority of the common words is different for American English. It is however, worth noting that even with the differences in spelling, the words retain the same meaning. What is established is that there are different ways through which certain words are spelt across Australian and American English. Some of the examples of these words drawn from these videos include; analyse in Southern British and Southern Australian English, and analyse in American English. The word apologise in Southern British and Southern Australian English, and apologize in American English. The spelling of most of the words with more than two syllables is the same across Southern Australian, Southern British and American English. Examples of these words are enterprise and surprise. Additionally, when it comes to such words as capsize, they are also spelt the same across the three varieties of English.

For those Southern British and Southern Australian words that have ‘our’ in them, they are spelt with ‘or’ in American English. Examples of these words include; colour in Southern British and Southern Australian English, and color in American English. Favourite in Southern British and Southern Australian English and favourite in American English (Schneider, 2007). For words that have double ‘l’s in American English, they are spelt with single consonants in Southern Australian and Southern British English. Examples of these words are enrolment and fulfilment in Southern Australian and Southern British English, and fulfilment and enrolment in American English.

It is worth noting that while there are similarities between the Southern British and Southern Australian dialects and the trap-bath occurs in both, the splitting of the words is not even. In both groups, the trap is pronounced with an (æ), and bath is pronounced with an (a), there exists a third class of words that include example, plant, graph, and chance among others whose pronunciation is done with an (a) in some parts of Australia (Matsuda, 2019). The elderly speakers of English in South Australia are observed as having a higher likelihood as compared to other Australians of pronouncing using (a) for the specific class of words. It should additionally be noted that in Australia, (a) is realised as (ɐ:), and in British English as (æ). Southern Australians are also observed to have the tendencies of reducing the intervocalic (t) or (d) in words like water, butter or ladder to a flap (ɾ) the same way as Americans. For most residents of Southern Australia, this phoneme is recognised as a glottal stop that is not even common among the other Australian accents. For words that have the (ʊ) vowel, for instance could, and book, the traditional (ʊ) vowel is retained in Southern Australian English. It is also observed that Southern Australians flap or soften their Ts in the same manner as Americans such that the word writer ends up sounding like ‘rider’. The young are observed to soften their Ts, even though just occasionally, in some of the words like party and water, leading to the words sounding differently and affected. For instance, “only wader was offered at the party.” When this phenomenon is grouped, it becomes evident that there does not exist any other English accents that soften their Ts in the same way as Southern Australians and Americans.

There are three distinct components in standard British English, and these include, front vowels lowering, raised mid black vowels, and high back vowels fronting (Schreier et al., 2020). NEAR vowels are at all times highly variable, and the NORTH vowel commonly replaces the PURE vowel. In total, there are about 18 to 20 vowels and this is dependent on whether a distinct PURE vowel is retained and also on whether or not commA and STRUT are treated as distinct or whether they are treated as stressed-determined variants. SB diphthongizes vowels and in doing so phonologically rationalises its long vowel system. In SB, the long monophthongs are a rather natural class as they exhibit r-linking and have a following vowel. The word FLEECE is a member of the class of front-closing diphthongs that exhibit j-linking with a following vowel. It is worth noting that this is a basic part of the phonology of English, and failure to observe it is quite common in non-native speech and this is the case even when dealing with learners at an advanced stage. For instance foreigners have the tendency of pronouncing initialisms like U.R.L as UʔRʔL and not UWRJL. From this, it is quite evident that in SB, within the vowel space, there are upper corners that play the role of endpoints of their two subclasses of diphthongs. These are perfectly transcribed as the semivowels j and w that are exactly equivalent from the point of view of vowel space, even though they have more benefits (Montini and Ranzato, 2021). Both j and w bring to the fore the falling nature of English diphthongs, that is, their prominence is on a decline. In addition, they play a reinforcing role of English and a link for foreign learners, for exampleway out is wɛjawt. They also provide the best way through which cardinals can be taught, through simply pronouncing intervocalic j and w and subsequently hitting the pause button in the middle of the semivowel.

In the event SB diphthongs are heavily accented, they are at times followed by a short, schwa-like sound that effectively acts to highlight the final j and w. These types of pronunciations are quite clearly different from the closing diphthongs that are common in the normal British English, owing to their not-quite-high endpoints I and u that are quite distinct. These are sounds that are relatively old-fashioned and that is especially in the final accented position. Within contexts of continuous speech that are not as accented, the contemporary j and w endpoints are often never attained (Foulkes et al. 2001).

Exploration of the commA-STRUT reveals that schwa is quite key to the sound of SB, and does not only occur on the ubiquitous pause vowel, but also in different lexical sets, including commA and STRUT. The majority of individuals show preference for giving STRUT a position of itself within the vowel space, either backer than or lower than schwa, even though it is not easy to pin it down owing to its variability. It is worth noting that in strict phonemic terms, commA and STRUT are not entirely contrastive, and therefore, there is no confusion that arises when they are pronounced in a similar manner, as done by the majority of American and British speakers. Therefore, the acquisition of a high schwa should be the higher priority, and saying Pizza H(ə)t is way better as compared to either Pizza Hot, or Pizza Het, as these are the usual errors made by those making efforts after the grail of “ʌ”.

The NEAR words in SB together with the surviving PURE words are to a large extent varisyllabic. When they come in strongly accented phrase-final positions, they are at times heard as sequences of FLEECE + schwa which are ɪjə and ʉwə. Generally, they have the tendency of being heard in the smooth monosyllabic forms ɪː and ɵː. In summary, SB vowels are increasingly evenly spread around the vowel space as compared to the other farieties of English. Their qualities are not as many and so is the case with their non-primary qualities, which makes them relatively easy to learn. All the short vowels apart from LOT and STRUT in the event it is distinct, function in the same long vowel system, which is quite different from the American English variety. SBs long vowels fall into three phonological classes which are in accordance to linking pattern.

Perhaps, the most notable difference between Southern British English and Southern Australian English is that while British English is focused on the pronunciation of words and the subsequent differentiation of the different words separately, Southern Australian English is relatively fast paced and the pronunciation of words is fast and there does not exist word by word pronunciation.

Looking for further insights on UWE Students' Support for Ethical Clothing Brands and the Implications? Click here.

References

Butcher, A., 2006, December. Formant frequencies of/hVd/vowels in the speech of South Australian females. In Proceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology (pp. 449-453).

CNN Business, 2021. Bill Gates opens up about his divorce and Jeffrey Epstein. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhZa3J2cemM [Accessed 18 December 2021].

Cogo, A., 2012. English as a lingua franca: Concepts, use, and implications. ELT journal, 66(1), pp.97-105.

Foulkes, P., Docherty, G.J., van der Velde, H. and van Hout, R., 2001. Variation and change in British English (r). r-atics: Sociolinguistic, Phonetic and Phonological Characteristics of/r/. Brussels: ILVP.

Matsuda, A., 2019. World Englishes and pedagogy. The handbook of world Englishes, pp.686-702.

Montini, D. and Ranzato, I. eds., 2021. The Dialects of British English in Fictional Texts. Routledge.

Real Stories, 2021. Lorraine Thorpe: Britain's Youngest Female Double Murderer (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qn10BI87h8 [Accessed 18 December 2021].

Riggs, D.W. and Due, C., 2011. (Un) common ground?: English language acquisition and experiences of exclusion amongst new arrival students in South Australian primary schools. Identities, 18(3), pp.273-290.

Schneider, E.W., 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world. Cambridge University Press.

Schreier, D., Hundt, M., Schneider, E.W. and Schneider, E.W., 2020. World Englishes: an introduction. Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics, pp.1-21.

South Australia, 2021. Stories of the South S1 EP1 | Outback Aviator. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDN_nEjyOM [Accessed 18 December 2021].

Trudgill, P. and Hannah, J., 2013. International English: A guide to the varieties of standard English. Routledge.