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Crossing Oceans with Voices and Ears: Second Dialect Acquisition and Topic-Based Shifting in Production and Perception

Walker, Abby Jewel
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397802092

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
This study investigates and compares the long and short term flexibility of participants' production and perception, by looking at the relationship between topic-based shifting, and second dialect acquisition. 97 participants in London, UK, and Columbus, OH, were recruited to participate in this study, and belonged to one of six categories: English expatriates living in the US, American expatriates living in the UK, English fans of American football, American fans of the English Premier League, and English and American controls. The study consisted of an experimental task followed by an interview. In the experiment, participants rotated between a reading and a listening task. In the reading task, participants read words containing three variables of interest (intervocalic /t/, non-prevocalic /r/, and BATH), across American and English themed topics. In the listening task, participants were played English and American speakers in noise, and were asked to transcribe what they heard. In the production data, we find evidence of second dialect acquisition for all three variables in American participants, including non-migrants with substantial second dialect contact. English participants, however, only show effects of acquisition for intervocalic /t/. I suggest, based on comments in the interview data of my participants, that this asymmetry may at least in part be due to the relative prestige of British and American English, which motivates one group of speakers to maintain, and one group of speakers to lose, their native dialects. We find a robust effect of topic on rhoticity for all speaker groups, and weaker effects of topic on intervocalic /t/ and BATH, that are carried by American fans and controls. Short and long term shifts between dialects do not show signs of being related, and a case can be made that there is actually a negative relationship between experience and topic-based shifting: we see more topic-based shifting in participants with the least transatlantic experience. In perception, I find that English participants have a clear own-dialect advantage in noise, but for Americans, only controls do. Both English and American speakers show some effects of experience on how accurate they are with their non-native dialect in noise relative to their native dialect. There is also an effect of preceding topic on how well American expats do with English accents, and they improve if the preceding topic was English-themed. I find no direct relationships between performance in the reading task and performance in the listening task. This study shows that second dialect contact, even non-migrant contact, involves changes to production and perception, and that it is not symmetrical in cases where there are clear differences in dialect prestige. This study is the most extensive to date exploring how topic can effect speech production, finding robust effects in read speech. Comparing the two processes suggests that topic-based shifts in production and second dialect acquisition are not simply different scales of the same type of linguistic flexibility, but rather reflect different mechanisms of shifting.
Kathryn Campbell-KIbler (Advisor)
Cynthia Clopper (Committee Member)
Mary Beckman (Committee Member)
Donald Winford (Committee Member)
192 p.
Linguistics
Linguistics; sociophonetics; sociolinguistics; transatlantic; dialect; code-switiching; second dialect acquisition; topic-based shifting; style shifting; British English; American English; experience

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Walker, A. J. (2014). Crossing Oceans with Voices and Ears: Second Dialect Acquisition and Topic-Based Shifting in Production and Perception [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397802092

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Walker, Abby. Crossing Oceans with Voices and Ears: Second Dialect Acquisition and Topic-Based Shifting in Production and Perception. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397802092.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Walker, Abby. "Crossing Oceans with Voices and Ears: Second Dialect Acquisition and Topic-Based Shifting in Production and Perception." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397802092

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1397802092
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.