Shape Shift: Australian English Sound Change

Felicity Cox

Australian Linguistic SocietyApplied Linguistic Association of

Australia8th July 2006

Aims

• Australian English • Vowels• Phonetic motivation for change• Techniques for measuring sound change• Vowel changes have occurred over the

past 100 years?• Current questions

Australian English

spoken by those • born and raised in Australia or• who immigrate at an early age and primarily

interact with an AusE speaking peer group.

the standard variety of English spoken in this country and is a salient marker of national identity.

not the only English variety of native-born.

Varieties of English used by Varieties of English used by native-born AustraliansAustralians

Standard Australian English (SAusE)

Aboriginal English

Various ethno-cultural Australian English dialects.

e.g. Lebanese Australian English

“Alan took a ham sandwich to school”

Some examples of Australian English speakersSome examples of Australian English speakersElderly Tasmanian, born 1880 recorded 1965

“Tin kettlin’ oh ho ho dear oh dear..”

15 year-old girl from Wangaratta recorded 2002“Helen picked a good spot near the water and spent the morning surfing and relaxing in the sun”

20 year-old man from Sydney recorded 2005“The plane flew down low over the runway then increased speed and circled the airfield a second time.”

20 year-old man from Sydney recorded 2004“Helen picked a good spot near the water and spent the morning surfing and relaxing in the sun”

35? year old man from Sydney recorded 1964“The varieties of Australian English…”

National Approach

• We do not have a current comprehensive picture of regional and social variation in Australia.

• A large scale national approach is required.

SOCIOPHONETIC VARIATION

Suprasegmental

Segmental

Systemic

Phonotactic

Lexical

Realisational

Sub-segmental

MonophthongsFronting

pitPete boot put

port

pet

patputtpart

pot

pertHeight

DiphthongsFronting

beer

bear

baybough

bow

by

boy

Height

Creating Vowel Space Plots

• Vowel space plots can be achieved by two different means– Impressionistically– Acoustically

The value of such plots is that they illustrate relationships between the vowels in the space.

Acoustic Analysis• Extracts information about physical aspects of

speech.

• Use formant frequency information (low frequency areas of high energy concentration resulting from vocal tract resonance).

• F1 and F2 - high correlations with the vowel parameters height and fronting.

• Formant data can be extracted from spectrograms.

Spectrogram

/ælǝn tʊk ǝ h æ m sæmwɪtʃ tǝ skʉ:l/

“Alan took a ham sandwich to school”

Vowel Space

Formant Ellipse Plot

Schematic Diphthong Trajectory

Diphthongs

Vowel Variation - Traditional Ideas

• The traditional description of SAusE restricts vowel variation to the 6 vowel phonemes that occur in the words “hay, he, high, hoe, how, who”

• These are considered the “broadness markers”

• Are young people today still using these vowel variations?

“Beat, boot, say, so, high, how”

Broadness

There are questions about the validity of retaining the broadness labels to describe SAusE variation today because

1. they are evaluative2. the broadness continuum defined by

these vowels has contracted3. new variation is present which may

define speaker groups more successfully

Accent Change

• Evidence for accent change is obvious when listening to old films or newsreels or listening to older compared to young people.

“…and then by rail, by road and by air, supplies were rushed to the threatened areas”

“Oh well I think I’ll get along to the baker’s and get a loaf ofbread. I don’t know what meat to get. I’ll have to get somethink”

• A comprehensive examination of sound change is multidisciplinary involving sociolinguistics, phonetics / phonology, social and political history.

Models of Sound Change

• Models of sound change distinguish between :

• socially motivated change• phonetically motivated change

Social and phonetic processes interact in a complex manner

Social Motivation• socially motivated change:

–external to the linguistic system

–the result of the changing social structure within and between social groups (Labov, 2001).

Sociolinguistic Research

• The large body of sociolinguistic research over the past 40 years has shown that social diversity and change can result in fluctuations in the linguistic variation present in the speech community (teleology of purpose)

• Such linguistic diversity may provide the impetus for sound change. (e.g. Labov, 2001)

Phonetic Motivation

• Phonetically motivated change:

– internal to the linguistic system

– the result of balancing two opposing forces• economy of speech gesture

(hypoarticulation) • sufficient separation (hyerarticulation)

(Lindblom, 1990; de Boer, 200, Redford et al 2001)

Hyperarticulation/Hypoarticulation

• Hypoarticulation– speaker induced – the result of embracing

connected speech processes“oh, go home, my home in the country ‘n’ uh work ‘n’ go riding, go rabbitin’, shooting ‘n’ that.”

Hyperarticulation– listener induced clarity – the result of

repressing connected speech processes“I should be doing the homework now instead of

reading Anna Karenin”

Principles Governing Speech Sounds

• Sound systems are governed by the principle of sufficient separation which ensures that economy of effort doesn’t hijack the perceptibility of utterances.

• There is a delicate balance between these two opposing forces creating a system that is self regulating.

Functional Change• When the movement of one sound threatens intelligibility, internal changes can occur within the system to preserve important contrasts.

• This may result in the phenomena known as drag- and push-chains where sounds can “push” and “pull” each other in order to maintain equilibrium within the system (Labov, 1994).

• This can have major consequences for the vowel system. (teleology of function)

• Labov (1994) has proposed a set of principles that predict vowel movement through space

Merger• If the system does not adjust to change, contrasts may

be lost. e.g. NZE “near-square” merger

(Hay, Warren and Drager, in press)

• Conditional merger has occurred for some speakers of SAusE in prelateral environments. e.g./æ-e/ (Cox and Palethorpe, 2004) /ʊ-ʉː/ and /əʉ-ɔ/ (Palethorpe and Cox, 2004).

• Merger and chain shift are consequences of the same process

/eI/-/æI/ Merger

Victoria NSW

Speaker 08 Speaker 68

“hell” “hell”

“Hal” “Hal”

Speaker 04 Speaker 40

“hell” “hell”

“Hal” “Hal”

Conditional Mergers

Non merging Merging“pool” “who’ll”“pull” “hooll”

doledoll

Synchronic and Diachronic Variation

• Synchronic variability and diachronic change are closely related (Weinreich et al, 1968).

• The direction of change should be apparent through synchronic variation.

Measuring Sound Change• real time:

– trend analyses:examination of speakers from different periods in history

– panel analysis:longitudinal examination of the same speakers

• apparent time: – analysis of different age groups (Bailey, 2001)

Age as a Variable

• Possible age related effects– accent stabilises after some critical age? – age grading? (age related changes that may repeat

in successive generations)– adult change? (Harrington et al study of QEII)

• Reality– is probably a combination of all three– there is a gradual increase in the difference between

an individual and the community with age.

Recent and Historical Change• Recent evolution – second half 20th century:

-illustrates: spatial rotation complementary shift

• Historical Analysis –Australian Ancestors Project (Cox and Palethorpe)

-illustrates: the intermediate period of Australian English accent history- vowel characteristics- consonantal characteristics

Recent SAusE Change• lowering of /æ/as in “bat”• fronting of /ʉː/as in “boot”• changed orientation of /əʉ/ as in “boat”

These changes have been observed through trend analysis and apparent time analysis

(e.g. Cox, 1999; Cox and Palethorpe, 2001)

Trend Analysis -1960’s and 1990’s

• Bernard’s data recorded in 1960s (25 males) compared with Cox data recorded in 1990s (60 males).

• 15 year-olds from Sydney• General Australian English accent.• Citation form /hVd/ data.

1960’s Monophthong Space

1990’s Monophthong Space

Monophthong change 1960s-1990s

1960s -1990s -

rotational shift

Monophthong change 1960s-1990s

1960s -1990s -

/æ/ as in “had”

• Southern Hemisphere Englishes have a raised “short front” series of vowels relative to RP.

“hid”, “head”, had”

• In NZE the raising progression has continued whereas in AusE a reversal of the progression has begun.

• Research shows that /æ/ has continued to lower over the past 40 years and we are now beginning to see changes to surrounding vowels.

Lowering of Lowering of //ææ//The lowering of /æ/ has made available

space for the descent of /e/ (via pull chain shift) further moving AusE away from NZE.

“head” “had” “hud”

ProgressiveProgressiveConservativeConservative

Current AusE Space

Shape shift

3500 2000 500

12

00

80

04

00

F2

F

1

3500 2000 5001

20

08

00

40

0

F2

F

1

ANDOSL RURAL

Diphthongs 1960s and 1990s

Diphthong Change /ɑe/ “hide”

“hide”

1960s -1990s -

Diphthong Change /əʉ/ “hode”

“hode”

1960s -1990s -

1960’s data

1990’s data

1960’s and 1990’s data

Rotational shift

Maintenance of relationships

• This complementary or chain shift is a direct result of the requirement of sufficient separation

• As change progresses throughout the community there will be instances where confusions may arise.

• e.g. “Tony vs Tiny”, “loan/line”“boat” or “bait”

/əʉ/as in “hoe”

• This vowel has undergone substantial change over the past 40 years.

• Mitchell and Delbridge identified an allophone present only in Adelaide which has now become quite widespread in Australia.

“New Guinea and Borneo”“Where the overflow goes”

Australian Ancestors’ Project

• Aim is to trace the development of the Australian English accent from inception through to the present day.

• The first stage is to examine old recordings of people born in the 19th century.

• This will help us to ascertain historical aspects of the accent and also explore some unresolved issues about sound change.

Mr Mortimer b.1893 Drake NSW – miner“Oh I don’ know whether Paddy might’ve been workin’ there

when he was a young fella.”

Mr Nixon b.1884 Wagga Wagga NSW –rouseabout

“They tried to do away with North Wagga ‘ere a few years ago.”

Mr Miller b.1885 Spring Bay TAS - able seaman“They put a notice in the paper not to be taken as it was

poison.”

Mr Hill b.1880 Campbell Town TAS –unknown

“A drop of wine on and ha ha drop of beer ha and there was cakes and one thing or another you know”

Mr Bennett b.1880 Dubbo NSW – shearer“Anyhow Jimmy put his head round the ironbark tree like this

Database so far

12 men and 5 women born in the late 19th

century (recorded between 1962 and 1975)

All from rural working class backgrounds

All from Tasmania and NSW

Interview style speech

Assumption

• Our assumption is that the speech of the elderly people reflects aspects of an earlier time in accent history.

• Miss Morrison (b. 1889, Rylston NSW) tells the story of scaling a barbed wire fence in long dress to escape a bull while out walking with the school inspector.

Data

The acoustic structure of the vowels in continuous speech was analysed using standard procedures established at SHLRC (Harrington et al., 2000).

Vowels selected for analysis had sentence stress.

Vowel targets were hand labelled according to criteria described in Harrington et al., 1997.

A selection of 4 speakers will be used for illustration.

b. 1880

b. 1885

b. 1884Modern Data

b. 18931960s Data

b. 1880

b. 1885

b. 1884Modern Data

b. 18931960s Data

b. 1880

b. 1885

b. 1884Modern Data

b. 18931960s Data

b. 1880

b. 1885

b. 1884Modern Data

b. 18931960s Data

father gardenmother

Vowel Shift

• Late 19th century– separated /ɐ,ɐː/, /iː,ɪ/, low /e/, low /ɔ/– slightly raised /æ/, central /ʉː/

• 20th century– raising of /short front series, raising of /ɔ/

• Present– short front raising reversal, /ʉː/ fronting, /ɔ/

raising• Future - ?? short front lowering, /ɐ,ɐː/retraction

1930s Movie

Ancestors’ Stories• vowel changes

– spatial – e.g. short front series ----------------------------------------------------------– diphthongal effects– allophonic - fronted /u/ before /l/, /əʉ/ before /l/,

non-raised nasal /æ/• consonantal differences –

– some evidence of flapped /r/– clear post vocalic /l/?– rhoticity?

Some Theoretical Questions

Regularity controversy: Regular sound change vs lexical diffusion

Does word frequency affect the spread of change?

What sociopolitical events does sound change parallel?

What is the relationship between gender and change?

Summary

• Australian English shape shift illustrates

–chain shifts in monophthongs and diphthongs

–monophthong and diphthong interdependence

–that shifts do not always follow predictable patterns of movement related to peripherality and tenseness

Summary

• Historical Data

– shows an earlier phase in AusE history which helps us to trace development

– shows that short front raising occurred throughout the 20thC and its not clear what precipitated this shift.

– will allow us to test some of the assumptions made by exemplar theory with respect to the regularity controversy and word frequency.

Future Work

• Examine a larger number of speakers with regard to regional and sociodemographic characteristics

• Examine whether remnants of rhoticity are present

• Explore allophonic vowel and consonant features

Acknowledgements

• Sallyanne Palethorpe - my collaborator on the Australian Ancestors’ Project

• The Australian Ancestors’ Project has been funded by two Macquarie University research grants

• Kimiko Tsukada for segmenting and labelling the ancestors’ data

• Relatives who allowed us to study their ancestor’s voices

Thank you