| Description |
This thesis is a variationist study of a reputed "Third Dialect" of American English; - the variety of English; spoken in the Salt Lake Valley. Wendy Morkel's dialectological study revealed that the Southern monophthongal (ai) is present in Utah. Morkel's study follows the study of Di Paolo and Faber predicting the Southern Rotation in Utah. This thesis is a sociophonetic assessment of these claims. Sociolinguistic interviews of seven young adults in Utah were analyzed acoustically. Results of the acoustic analysis indicated that glide-weakening in (ai) is present in Utah English; and is conditioned by the voicing of the following consonant, consistent with Southern patterns. Glides tend to be weaker before voiced obstruents, nasals, and in open syllables. However, this thesis found that the front-upgliding word classes are inconsistent with Southern patterns. The analysis also revealed that gender plays an important role, with men weakening glides significantly more than women. This thesis frames the results of the analysis within sociolinguistic theory and will show how the evidence presented can inform sociolinguistic research both linguistically and socially. |
