Copyright by Brendan Patrick Regan 2017
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Copyright by Brendan Patrick Regan 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Brendan Patrick Regan Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Effect of Dialect Contact and Social Identity on Fricative Demerger Committee: Almeida Jacqueline Toribio, Supervisor Barbara E. Bullock, Co-Supervisor Dale Koike Sergio Romero Rajka Smiljanic Malcah Yaeger-Dror The Effect of Dialect Contact and Social Identity on Fricative Demerger by Brendan Patrick Regan Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2017 Dedication Dedicated to my wife, my parents, my Nana, and my sister and brother. And also to all of the buena gente of Huelva and Lepe who were so gracious to share with me stories of their life, region, and culture. Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the immense professional and personal support that I have received over the course of my graduate studies. I cannot do justice in words for the gratitude that I have for my two advisors, Almeida Jacqueline Toribio and Barbara Bullock. With great patience you have mentored and challenged me to become my best academic self. You have set an example for me to follow in my career, not only of outstanding scholarship, but also of how to be an exemplary colleague. I would not be the scholar I am today without the two of you. I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to Dale Koike, my unofficial third advisor. Dale, thank you for your encouragement and mentoring through the years. I am also indebted to Rajka Smiljanic, Malcah Yaeger-Dror, and Sergio Romero for their guidance and feedback during this project. Additionally, I would like to thank Lars Hinrichs, Cinzia Russi, and David Birdsong for their mentorship throughout my time at The University of Texas. I am also indebted to Sally Ragsdale for outstanding statistical guidance. Finally, I am forever grateful to Jonathan Holmquist, Augusto Lorenzino, and Paul Toth for introducing me to the field of linguistics at Temple University. Above all, I would like to thank my wife, mi vida, my partner, my best friend, Kristen. Kris, I cannot thank you enough for all your unending support throughout these last several years of graduate school and dissertation. This is our dissertation. I’m enthusiastic to start our next chapter of life together in a world post dissertation. I would like to also acknowledge my parents, Patti and Paul Regan, my Nana, Mary Dellipriscoli, and my siblings, Caitlin and Tim. Momma and Dad, you have always supported me in all my endeavors, no matter where they have taken me, even far from home. I am who I am today thanks to you both. Nana, thank you for supporting me in my education, even as it meant leaving Philly to come all the way to Texas; and for keeping me up-to-date on the Phils and the Eagles. To my siblings, Caitlin and Tim, thanks for supporting me on this dissertation jawn. Family, I love yous/yall so much. v I am incredibly thankful for my Austin family, for their love and support in the last five years: Cole and Leena Pacak (& Miss Lucia!), Kelly and Steven Cutbirth (& Miss Amelia!), Josh and Caroline Cody, Ben and Esther Sanders, Pablo and Maria Durán, Hannah Friesen and Daniel Curtis, George Washington, and the Vox community. It is you who have truly made Austin home for us and have allowed me to thrive in my studies with such great support. I would also like to thank my Longhorn family: Arno Argueta, Mark Amengual, Jeff Michno, Jacqueline Larsen Serigos, Natalie Rangel, Josh Frank, Steven Alcorn, Whitman Suárez, Diana Pedraza, Tom Leddy-Cecere, Adrian Riccelli, Estefi Valenzuela Mochón, Robyn Wright, Brandon Baird, Célia Cordeiro, Mitch Ingram, and Brian Bobbitt for your encouragement and friendship. A mi gente andaluza… Quiero mostrar mi agradecimiento a mi amigo Luis Guevara Góngora y a su familia por acogerme en su casa como si fuera otro hijo cada verano en mi ruta hacia Huelva. Me han enseñado a ser un verdadero andalú-andalú. En Huelva capital, les debo mucho a Alba Vázquez Solbes y Manolo Delgado García (y Balú) por su amistad y dejarme estar en su casa tantas veces durante mi investigación (y a Manolo por revisar la lectura sobre Huelva). Le agradezco mucho a Arancha Soler Gago y a su familia el dejar a este guiri-choquero grabar tantas entrevistas en su casa. Gracias a María Ríos por ayudarme encontrar a tantos participantes. Mil gracias a Jesús y David (Bar Paloma) y a la buena gente de la Barriada de la Orden por su apoyo a mi proyecto. En Lepe, les debo mucho a Pepi Ferrera Prieto, María Victoria Galloso Camacho, Ana y José Alberto Prieto González y Carmen Ávila de la Vega por ayudarme encontrar a tantos participantes. Mil gracias al centro de mayores de Lepe, especialmente a Alejandrina y Paqui, y al teatro municipal de Lepe por darme un espacio para grabar tantas entrevistas. A mis queridos choqueros, leperos y sevillanos, mil gracias por hacer posible este trabajo. No hubiera sido posible sin vosotros. This research project was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (BCS-1528551). Any findings, opinions, and conclusions expressed in this dissertation are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Science Foundation. vi The Effect of Dialect Contact and Social Identity on Fricative Demerger Brendan Patrick Regan, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisors: Almeida Jacqueline Toribio and Barbara E. Bullock This dissertation focuses on the phonetic demerger of the traditional dialectal feature of ceceo, [sθ], into the national prestige feature of distinción, [s] and [θ]. Based on 80 sociolinguistic interviews (40 male, 40 female; ages 18-87), the current endeavor analyzes the coronal fricative variation in the city of Huelva and the nearby rural town of Lepe. The aim of the research was four-fold: (i) to provide a sociophonetic assessment of the demerger of ceceo in connection to sociolinguistic theories of mergers and splits; (ii) to investigate which linguistic and extra-linguistic factors promote the demerger of ceceo to distinción; (iii) to compare a rural and an urban speech community in regards to the demerger; and finally, (iv) to determine the acoustic properties of these Andalusian coronal fricatives. The current analysis focuses on a reading passage and a word list from a larger four-part sociolinguistic interview averaging 60 minutes. The results indicate that significant predictors of demerged realizations are: orthography, gender, age, education, occupation and origin on the measures of center of gravity, variance, and mean intensity. The leaders of change are females, younger, those with more educational attainment, those with service and professionally oriented occupations, and those from Huelva. Those with distinción demonstrate a separation in phonemes with higher values for center of gravity and mean intensity for [s] and lower values for center of gravity and mean intensity for [θ], while those with ceceo demonstrate intermediate values for center of vii gravity and mean intensity. The implications of this study are fourfold: (i) large scale- societal changes of increased dialect contact, increased education, changes in sectors of employment, and changes in population have created the social context that allows for the convergence from traditional dialectal ceceo to standard Castilian distinción; (ii) the motivation for this community-wide split is inherently social, suggesting that sociolinguistic theory should incorporate more non-English examples to investigate long- standing claims regarding mergers/splits such as Garde’s and Herzog’s Principles; (iii) both urban Huelva and rural Lepe are moving from merged ceceo to demerged distinción in similar processes of linguistic change, but differing in rate of change, indicating that even smaller towns perceived as timeless carriers of dialectal features are susceptible to convergence to regional or national standards; and, finally, (iv) the feature of ceceo undermines the phonological categorical approach between phonemes as it presents a gradient phonetic continuum between and overlapping with /s/ and /θ/. The present study contributes to the on-going research of coronal fricatives and dialect convergence in Andalucía, dialect contact induced change in modern social dialectology, and variationist analysis of mergers and splits. viii Table of Contents List of Tables ........................................................................................................ xiii List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xv 1. Mergers/Splits and Dialect Contact ..................................................................... 1 1.1 Phonetic merger and split (demerger) ...................................................... 2 1.1.1 Mergers ......................................................................................... 3 1.1.2 Splits (demergers) ........................................................................ 5 1.1.3 (Lack of) Social affect of mergers/splits ...................................... 8 1.1.4 The two main accounts of splits ................................................... 9 1.1.4.1 Apparent or near-mergers ................................................. 9 1.1.4.2 Dialect contact induced