Photo by John Frank Keith

Of “moice” and men:The evolution of a male-led sound change Photo by John Frank Keith

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change • Sociolinguistic studies show language change led by: • Women • The interior social classes Supported by the data from the study of Linguistic Change and Variation in Philadelphia [LCV] (Labov, 2001) Conformity Paradox: Women deviate less than men from linguistic norms when the deviations are overtly proscribed, but more than men when the deviations are not proscribed (367) The Curvilinear Principle: Linguistic change from below originates in a central social group, located in the interior of the socioeconomic hierarchy (188)

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change • Problem variable in the LCV data: The raising of the nucleus of the diphthong /ay/ before voiceless consonants (ay0) • Led by men • Shows no social stratification psych nice man • Is (ay0) a counter-example to “typical” language change? • How does (ay0) progress through the speech community over time? • What about the movement on the front/back dimension of (ay0)? • If (ay0) does not behave like other vocalic changes in progress, are there certain gender-based evaluations of this variable? That is, do certain variants sound more masculine/feminine? Questions from the patterning of (ay0) in the LCV data:

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change The current study: Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change [OMM] • OMM: • Re-study of Philadelphia 30 years after LCV • Data collected from (2000-2003) • Focus on (ay0) and secondary focus on (aw) • Included self-identified gays and lesbians as part of the data set Striving for high comparability with the original study, OMM followed the methodology and data analysis of the LCV as discussed in Labov, 2001 Microphone and recorder differences were not taken into consideration, but will be looked into in the future

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology • Sample: 65 native Philadelphians • The data: sociolinguistic interviews (at subject’s house) including formal tasks of semantic differentials, minimal pairs tests, reading passage and a word list • Social Coding: Each speaker was coded for various social characteristics following the LCV (see Labov, 2001 for further details) - education, occupation and residence converted into socioeconomic class category (SEC) • age • sex • education • occupation • residence value • mobility • house upkeep • ethnicity • foreign language background • generation • neighborhood of origin

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology • Also coded for sexual orientation • Sexual orientation for both F1 and F2 (ay0) is not a significant social factor predicting values as either a binary category (gay/lesbian~hetero) or a combo 4-way split of sex and sexual orientation

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology Acoustic vowel analysis • LPC analysis in Praat • Single-point, synchronous nuclear measurements of F1 and F2 • Additional auditory support for single-point selection • Vowels of all Plotnik 25 vowel classes were measured - at least 5 tokens per class per speaker - complete vowel system for every speaker (200-500 tokens) • Data cleaned for measurement errors • Using Neary’s Log mean normalization in Plotnik, each speaker’s cleaned system was normalized, and from these data, a mean F1/F2 for each vowel class (and phonetic subclasses) was calculated

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology Some methodological concerns for investigating a speech community in real time 3 decades later • Subject recruitment: representative neighborhoods have changed • Updating the socioeconomic class index (SEI)

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology Subject recruitment: • LCV neighborhoods selected to represent different social classes - Kensington (NE), South Philly (S), Overbrook (W) & King of Prussia (NW) • OMM neighborhoods sampled similar areas - biggest change was substituting Chestnut Hill/Mount Airy for King of Prussia • Self-identified gays and lesbians recruited through personal contacts (sometimes relatives/friends of neighborhood subjects)

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology Updating the socioeconomic class index (SEI): • LCV used scale below to calculate socioeconomic score, which was used to calcluate socioeconomic class category (SEC)

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology Updating the socioeconomic class index (SEI): • The median residence values according to the census data have increased from $10,600 (1970) to $59,700 (2000), so each level of the residence scale was multiplied by 5.632 to reflect this change • According to the 1970 and 2000 censuses, the median education attainment level changed from 10.9 years in 1970, to graduating high school or equivalent in 2000. This reflects an overall increase in the population’s education, so 1 point was added to each SEC to account for this.

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Methodology Updating the socioeconomic class index (SEI): • Translation of social class categories (SEC) from LCV to OMM

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Statistical Analysis • In order to examine all the independent variables at the same time, a stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted using the following independent social variables: • age • sex • education • occupation • residence value • mobility • house upkeep • ethnicity • foreign language background • generation • neighborhood of origin

age • occupation • generation Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Apparent Time F1 (ay0) Results • The stepwise regression analysis of (ay0) selected the following social variables as significant factors in predicting F1 (ay0) values

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Apparent Time F1 (ay0) Results • This model with age, occupation and generation can account for 46% of the variation (r2 = 0.46) of F1 (ay0) in the data, with age as a significant predictor at p < .0001 • Data show change in apparent time 650 700 Predicted F1 (ay0) 750 800 14-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+ age groups

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Apparent Time F1 (ay0) Results • Generation score of 3 significantly higher F1 (ay0) values (non-raised variants) than the other scores • Occupation score of 3 has significantly lower F1 (ay0) values, while a score of 4 has significantly higher F1 (ay0) values (not curvilinear principle) Predicted F1 (ay0) occupation scores Occupation scores based on regression estimates (least squares means)

Sex = Female Sex = Male Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Apparent Time F1 (ay0) Results • Apparent time shows no sex differentiation or social stratification • Sex not significant social factor predicting F1 (ay0) - distribution shown below(linear fit lines and p = .90 bivariate normal elipses) • SEC not significant social factor predicting F1 (ay0) - distribution shown below 600 ay01 650 700 750 800 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Regression lines for each social class of F1 (ay0) with age as a continuous variable Age

F2 1500 1400 1300 1200 600 650 LWC Men UWC Men UWC Women F1 700 UMC Men LMC Men UMC Women LWC Women LMC Women 750 800 Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Apparent Time F2 (ay0) Results • F2 (ay0) does not show age as significant social factor predicting F2 values (no change in apparent time) • SEC does show significant effects (p<.001), but when sorted by sex, only men show significant social stratification (p<.001) while women do not (p>.10) Predicted F1/F2 (ay0) values plotted by sex and social class

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change OMM: Real Time F1 (ay0) Results Transformed LCV data into comparable age groups with OMM • F1 (ay0) in apparent time for both data sets 650 700 OMM Predicted F1 (ay0) 750 LCV 800 850 under 30 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+ age group

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Real Time F1 (ay0) Results Added 30 years to LCV ages and combined data sets • Stepwise process selected age and sex as significant social factors (at the p < 0.1 level) with 33.7% of variation explained by model (r2 = .337) • Real time change shows larger decreases in F1 (ay0) followed by plateaus of little change 650 700 Predicted F1 (ay0) 750 800 850 14-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90+ age group Predicted F1 values of (ay0) for both LCV and OMM data sets

650 MEN: Age coefficient = 1.44 r2 = 0.260 700 Women 750 Men WOMEN: Age coefficient = 1.46 r2 = 0.348 800 850 14-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90+ Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Real Time F1 (ay0) Results • Sorting the data by sex, varying moments of sex differentiation • This picture is different from apparent time analysis in Labov, 2001 in that unified speech community in 80-89 age group Predicted F1 (ay0) age group Predicted F1 (ay0) values for combined data sets sorted by sex

LWC Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Real Time F1 (ay0) Results • SEC not selected as significant factor in the regression model, but sorting the data by SEC, age still a significant factor (p < .10 level) for each class (change occurring in all classes) 550 600 UWC 650 LMC 700 F1 ay0 UMC 750 800 850 900 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 Age Regression lines for each social class of F1 (ay0) for both studies

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Real Time F2 (ay0) Results • F2 (ay0) in combined data set - stepwise regression model selected age, occupation, residence and education as significant social factors (p <.10) Predicted F2 (ay0) age group Predicted F2 (ay0) values by age groups for combined data

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Real Time F2 (ay0) Results • Real time analysis does not show clear social stratification of this change • Sorting the data by SEC, age only significant factor in LWC (p < 0 .0354) and UWC (p < 0.0205) Predicted F2 (ay0) age group Predicted F2 (ay0) values for both data sets by age group and SEC

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Real Time Summary • The mechanism of (ay0) raising sound change: change began by whole community, and then sex differentiation • No clear social stratification of this variable • Only real time analysis shows F2 backing over time • F2: no sex differentiation, but social class stratification

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • 6 “Speakers”: • Jill - 24 year old woman; Ben - 43 year old man (2 guises each) • 1 other man and 1 other woman used as fillers • Sentences • 3 variables investigated (aw, ay0, and neutral) X 2 sentences each

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • Creating the test: • Both Jill & Ben practiced so they produce moderate Philadelphia tokens and more extreme Philadelphia tokens (extra Philly) • Jill/Ben’s vowel system calculated through reading passage and word list • Tokens for each guise selected from the many possibilities comparing the extra Philly tokens within each speaker’s “regular” vowel system • Sentences spliced together from the selected tokens • Sentences were duplicated (so each sentence played two times consecutively) and randomized • Male then female speaker alternating • Used filler speakers to make sure that no two identical sentence of the corresponding Jill/Ben guise occurred close together

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • Administering the SRT • 36 sentence SRT administered as part of socioling interview (sometimes after, sometimes before) • Evaluators were told to rate each speaker (3 men, 3 women) on the following scale for each sentence.

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • 3 Analyses of SRT evaluations • 1) looks at the data from all of the evaluators to see if patterns from the matched guise aspect are revealed from the entire speech community • 2), following the analysis of the LCV SRT in Labov, 2001, examines the difference for each speaker/guise from the neutral sentence ratings to the ratings of each variable • 3) uses a series of differences in each evaluator’s ratings to uncover any social variables which may affect the ratings

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • All evaluators matched guise evaluations • 2-tailed, unequal variance t-tests conducted on mean evaluations for matched guises (boxed diffs are significant at p < 0.01)

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • All evaluators intraspeaker evaluations

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • Social factors of evaluators • Some significant factors, but not consistent • Age or sex never significant • Uniform speech community as evaluators

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change Subjective Reaction Test • SRT Summary • Uniform speech community • Male and female speaker for (ay0) evaluated on different scales but male and female evaluators agree on this distinction and difference in sociolinguistic expectations of men and women

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change SUMMARY • Real time support for apparent time analysis of LCV (ay0) • (ay0) backing only shown in real time • This variable shows language change progresses not linearly, but taking large steps forward, and then relative stability • Sex differentiation not a given, but needs to be maintained at each step in the change

Of “moice” and men: The evolution of a male-led sound change OMM: To be continued What’s next? (To be continued at NWAV35...) • While (ay0) does not show sex differentiation or social stratification, the other new and vigorous changes do (eyC) and (aw) • They also show a significant effect of sexual orientation • What about other changes - incipient, completed? - in Philadelphian English • Is Philadelphia becoming a Northern city and losing its Philly-ness? What does this all mean? • Check out my website to download this presentation and find out more details about methodology: www. jeffconn.net

Photo by John Frank Keith