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Language Variation in South Africa: a Sociophonetic Study of the Vowel System of Black South African English

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Language Variation in South Africa: a Sociophonetic Study of the Vowel System of Black South African English LANGUAGE VARIATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: A SOCIOPHONETIC STUDY OF THE VOWEL SYSTEM OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Regensburg vorgelegt von Cornelia Neubert aus Chemnitz im Jahr 2020 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Edgar Schneider Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Thorsten Brato …to Uli Table of Contents Tables ............................................................................................................ iv Figures ......................................................................................................... viii Abbreviations and symbols .............................................................................. x Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... xi 1 “Eish, but is it English?” .............................................................................. 1 2 Black South African English ......................................................................... 7 2.1 The environment of acquisition ......................................................................... 7 2.2 Attitudes towards BSAE ................................................................................... 11 2.3 Embedding BSAE in the Dynamic Model .......................................................... 13 2.4 The vowel systems of the substrate languages ................................................. 18 2.5 Vowel phonology of BSAE ................................................................................ 20 2.5.1 Describing the system ............................................................................. 20 2.5.2 Sociophonetic studies of BSAE ................................................................ 26 3 White South African English ....................................................................... 31 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 31 3.2 The vowel system of White South African English (WSAE) .............................. 31 3.2.1 Terminology and the Great Trichotomy .................................................. 31 3.2.2 Short monophthongs ............................................................................... 32 3.2.3 Long monophthongs ............................................................................... 35 4 Dataset and Methodology ........................................................................... 37 4.1 Recruitment of informants ............................................................................... 37 4.2 The sample ....................................................................................................... 38 4.3 Social variables ................................................................................................ 39 4.3.1 Age ......................................................................................................... 40 4.3.2 Gender .................................................................................................... 40 4.3.3 Ethnicity and first language .................................................................... 41 4.3.4 Class and education ................................................................................ 42 4.4 Linguistic variables .......................................................................................... 42 4.4.1 Phonemes ............................................................................................... 42 4.4.2 Phonological context ............................................................................... 42 4.4.3 Spelling ................................................................................................... 43 4.4.4 Speech style ............................................................................................ 43 4.4.5 Vowels in L1 ........................................................................................... 43 4.5 Research hypotheses ........................................................................................ 43 4.6 Research design and recordings ....................................................................... 44 4.6.1 Coding of the speakers ............................................................................ 45 4.6.2 The interview .......................................................................................... 45 4.6.3 Reading Passage and Wordlist ................................................................ 46 4.6.4 Recording device and data storage ......................................................... 47 4.6.5 Data preparation for the acoustic analysis .............................................. 47 i 4.6.6 Segmentation .......................................................................................... 50 4.6.7 Data cleansing......................................................................................... 53 4.7 Statistical analysis ............................................................................................ 54 4.7.1 Token selection and model design .......................................................... 54 4.7.2 Descriptive statistics ............................................................................... 57 4.7.2.1 Analysis of vowel quality .......................................................... 57 4.7.2.2 Analysis of vowel duration ........................................................ 60 4.7.2.3 Graphic presentation of the results ............................................ 61 4.7.3 Statistical modelling ............................................................................... 64 5 Results and Discussion ............................................................................... 69 5.1 Questionnaire data ........................................................................................... 69 5.2 The vowel space of BSAE ................................................................................. 75 5.2.1 The high front vowels ............................................................................. 77 5.2.1.1 Vowel quality ............................................................................ 77 5.2.1.2 Vowel duration.......................................................................... 82 5.2.1.3 KIT split ...................................................................................... 86 5.2.1.4 Summary of the key findings ..................................................... 89 5.2.2 The mid front vowels .............................................................................. 90 5.2.2.1 Vowel quality ............................................................................ 90 5.2.2.2 Vowel duration.......................................................................... 95 5.2.2.3 NURSE spelling ........................................................................... 98 5.2.2.4 Summary of the key findings ................................................... 100 5.2.3 The low central vowels ......................................................................... 101 5.2.3.1 Vowel quality .......................................................................... 101 5.2.3.2 Vowel duration........................................................................ 106 5.2.3.3 STRUT spelling .......................................................................... 108 5.2.3.4 Summary of the key findings ................................................... 109 5.2.4 The mid back vowels ............................................................................ 110 5.2.4.1 Vowel quality .......................................................................... 110 5.2.4.2 Vowel duration........................................................................ 118 5.2.4.3 Summary of the key findings ................................................... 120 5.2.5 The high back vowels ........................................................................... 121 5.2.5.1 Vowel quality .......................................................................... 121 5.2.5.2 Vowel quality within GOOSE .................................................... 129 5.2.5.3 Vowel duration........................................................................ 133 5.2.5.4 Summary of key findings ......................................................... 136 5.2.6 “Traditional” and “crossover” speakers ................................................. 137 5.3 Validation of the research hypotheses ............................................................ 141 5.4 Further observations ...................................................................................... 144 6 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 147 ii 6.1 Overview of the project ................................................................................. 147 6.2 Summary of the results .................................................................................. 148 6.3 Limitations ..................................................................................................... 151 6.4 Outlook .......................................................................................................... 153 References .................................................................................................... 156 Appendix .....................................................................................................
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