Child Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variation A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics By Shannon Mooney, M.A. Washington, DC February 27, 2020 Copyright c 2020 by Shannon Mooney All Rights Reserved ii Child Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variation Shannon Mooney, M.A. Dissertation Advisor: Jennifer Nycz, Ph.D. Abstract This dissertation explores the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation by 5;0 to 6;0 year old children in a public bilingual immersion elementary school setting. It shows how children at this age engage in spontaneous stylistic variation during play with peers, suggesting early diffusion of non-local forms. The capacity for stylistic varia- tion indicates an emergent sociolinguistic competence. This emergent sociolinguistic competence is then shown to play a role in phonological accommodation to peers and acquisition of a second dialect vowel system over the course of the first year at school, as, by the end of the school year, children were found to move toward the vowel system of the classmate to whom they showed the most affinity. Spontaneous child speech with classmates was recorded at monthly timepoints throughout a year of ethnographic fieldwork at the school. Vowel formants in fifteen lexical classes were extracted from the recordings to test for the presence of the traditional Eastern New England English (ENEE) dialect vowel system, as well as the vowel systems of surrounding regional dialects and vowels undergoing change in multiple North American English varieties. While a qualitative analysis reveals stylistic variation in performance of personae during roleplay, statistical modeling using classification and regression trees (CART) shows accommodation to the vowel system of a second dialect that appears to be subject to interpersonal relationships between peers as well as a potential influence of peer ethnicity. iii A major finding from this study is the amount of linguistic variation that exists between peers in this public early education setting that draws students from across many residentially-segregated communities in a small post-industrial city near Boston. The exposure of the very young children in this study to extensive linguistic variation leads to an active role for the children’s sociolinguistic competence as they navigate relationships with peers, identity, stances, power, and development into adult-like sociolinguistic actors. Index words: sociolinguistic development, dialect acquisition, phonological accommodation, stylistic variation, child speech, language in schools, peer learning, ethnicity, Eastern New England English iv Dedication For Elsie. v Acknowledgments Jen, we did it! Thank you for everything — our writing retreats, coffees at the cathe- dral, celebratory text messages, etc. From when I first reached out to you for advice in early 2009, you have been there for me, allowing me to find my way academically and develop an independent and interdisciplinary voice while also having my back and putting in sometimes a lot of effort just to keep me going. I am also grateful to Natalie Schilling for her guidance while I was designing and carrying out the project, as well as for her enthusiasm and engagement throughout, and for some truly restora- tive lunches. I am grateful as well to Elissa Newport for taking me under her wing and welcoming me into her lab meetings and reading groups, and for encouraging me along as I discovered and began to engage with foundational concepts in cognitive science and developmental psychology. Elissa, I also admire and am deeply grateful for your fierce advocacy for women. I am grateful to Youngah Do for serving on an earlier version of my dissertation committee while at Georgetown, as well as for our evolving collaborative relationship now that we find ourselves on opposite sides of the world. Thank you, above all, to my parents Jean and Joe Mooney, as well as Pat Mooney and Alisen Downey, whose support, love, and encouragement have sustained me through the completion of this very long project. I am also grateful for my Glover Park family, Lara Bryfonski, Lindley Winchester, Andrew Scanlan, and Nick Osmund- son. Thank you to my ‘second parents’, Kathy and Mike Lentini, who provided me with food, shelter, a car(!), and friendship during my year of fieldwork. Thanks as vi well to staff and students at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), and especially to Eddie Maloney, Maggie Debelius, and Yianna Vovides for their support, understanding, and encouragement of me while completing this work. Thank you to Caitlin Crafton, Desniq Campbell, and Adam Leader-Smith for the cupcakes, the balloons, and the hugs, and thank you, Joselyn Schultz Lewis, just for being you. I am grateful to Dr. Susan McGilvray-Rivet, and to Dr. Anna Nolin for con- necting us, as well as to Framingham Public Schools administrators, teachers, aides, volunteers, and families. Thanks especially to my Kindergarten participants (now third-graders!) and their families, who will remain very special to me always. Very en- thusiastic thanks to Sarah Sybicki, who is the most amazingly brilliant and dedicated research assistant I could have ever asked for. Thanks also to all the research assis- tants who have contributed to the project: Annie Xie, Kenzie Offley, Daniel Wheelock, Jocelyn Alvarez, Jade Ponciano, Nimitha Kommoju, and Elizabeth Krueger. Lastly, I am grateful to the National Science Foundation DDRI Linguistics Program for their financial support of this project (Award no. 1729018). vii Contents Chapter 1 Introduction . .1 2 Context: Social and Linguistic Diversity in the Greater Boston Area . .8 2.1 The Greater Boston Area . .8 2.1.1 “The Most Racist City in America” . 12 2.1.2 Kindergarten Representation Index . 15 2.2 The Community: Framingham, MA . 19 2.2.1 Ethnic and Racial Diversity and Immigration . 20 2.2.2 Linguistic Diversity . 21 2.2.3 Residential Segregation by Neighborhood . 22 2.2.4 Dissimilarity, Isolation, and Exposure Measures . 25 2.2.4.1 Dissimilarity Index . 26 2.2.4.2 Isolation Index . 27 2.2.4.3 Exposure to Other Groups . 28 2.2.5 Poverty and Race/Ethnicity . 29 2.2.6 Issues with Relying on Census Data . 30 2.3 Conclusion . 31 3 Methodology: Sociolinguistic Fieldwork for a Linguistically Diverse Ur- ban Elementary School . 33 3.1 Introduction to the Fieldsite . 33 3.1.1 Immersion Elementary School . 35 3.1.2 Ethnicity and Labels . 37 3.2 Participants and Participant Selection . 41 3.3 School Culture and Implications for Language Use . 50 3.3.1 Exposure to Spanish and English . 52 3.3.2 Bilingual Immersion in the School Day . 52 3.3.3 English Classes . 54 3.4 Methods of Data Collection and Data Analysis . 55 3.4.1 Recording Schedule . 57 3.4.2 Recording Equipment . 59 3.4.3 Data Processing . 61 3.4.3.1 Transcription and Alignment of Recordings . 62 3.4.3.2 Coding and Extraction of Phonetic Data . 65 viii 3.4.4 Additional Data Artifacts . 65 3.4.4.1 Class Transcripts . 66 3.4.4.2 Sociomatrices . 66 3.4.4.3 Observation Notes . 67 3.4.4.4 Parent Surveys . 68 3.5 Conclusion . 68 4 The Development of Style . 70 4.1 Stylistic Practice . 73 4.1.1 Style and Stylistic Variation . 73 4.1.1.1 Models of Stylistic Variation and Language Change . 74 4.1.2 Stance and Indexicality . 75 4.1.3 Acquisition of Stylistic Practice . 78 4.1.4 Performance . 82 4.2 Young Children as Social Actors . 85 4.2.1 Participant Details . 86 4.2.1.1 Age . 86 4.2.1.2 Neighborhood and Background . 88 4.3 KIT, DRESS, TRAP, GOAT, GOOSE, and FOOT Vowels . 92 4.3.1 Front Lax Vowels KIT, DRESS, and TRAP . 92 4.3.2 Back Vowels GOAT, GOOSE, and FOOT . 93 4.3.3 California Vowel Shift . 94 4.4 Case Study: Acquisition of ‘rude’ . 97 4.4.1 The Phonetics of ‘rude’ . 114 4.5 Case Study: Stylization in Roleplay . 116 4.5.1 Normalization . 119 4.5.2 Performance Vowel Classes . 121 4.5.2.1 GOOSE and FOOT . 124 4.5.2.2 KIT, DRESS, and TRAP . 125 4.5.2.3 GOAT . 129 4.6 Discussion . 132 5 Peer Affinity and Accommodation in Dialect Acquisition . 135 5.1 Background . 135 5.1.1 Input . 136 5.1.2 Accommodation and Second Dialect Acquisition . 138 5.1.2.1 Interactive Alignment Theory . 145 5.1.2.2 Audience Design Theory and Communication Accommodation Theory . 147 5.2 Affinity and Attention . 148 5.2.1 Testing the Role of Input . 148 5.2.2 Nardy et al. (2014) . 150 ix 5.2.3 Affinity Mapping . 151 5.2.4 Power and Conflict . 154 5.3 Variables . 156 5.3.1 Low Vowel Systems . 156 5.3.2 Canadian Raising . 157 5.3.3 Coding and Extraction . 159 5.3.4 Normalization . 162 5.4 Phonetic Convergence . 168 5.5 Dialect Acquisition . 175 5.5.1 Low Vowel Systems . 175 5.5.1.1 Baselines . 177 5.5.2 Canadian Raising . 184 5.5.2.1 Baselines . 186 5.5.3 Testable Hypotheses . 188 5.5.4 Change to Individual Systems . 191 5.5.4.1 Marshall . 191 5.5.4.2 Sienna . 196 5.6 Discussion and Limitations . 200 6 Conclusion . 207 6.1 Contributions . 207 6.2 Discussion of Findings . 209 6.3 Limitations and Directions for Future Research . 212 Appendix A Additional Demographics Tables . 214 B Parent Dialect Background and Attitudes Survey Text . 216 C Roleplay: Full Transcripts . 223 D Summary Tables for Low Vowel Systems Regression Tree Models . 240 Bibliography ................................... 244 x List of Figures 2.1 Major roadways in Metrowest Boston (Google n.d.).