Diphthong changes in style shifting from Southern English to Standard American English.
This study was undertaken to identify the acoustic correlates of the diphthongs /aI/ and /contains as a subset I/ in individuals who were trained to "style shift" between Standard American English (SAE) and Southern English (SE). The diphthongs were produced by four individuals from the coastal southern dialect region who were selected from among those who had successfully completed an accent-reduction program. Results showed that diphthongs used in SE were shorter and had less noticeable transitional elements than those in SAE. The difference was more apparent for /aI/ than /contains as a subset I/. There were no instances in which a diphthong was completely replaced by a vowel in SE. Findings indicate that acoustic analysis may be a useful tool in identifying dialectal elements, particularly for those individuals who are learning to style shift.
Weil
K S
KS
Buford Public Schools, Georgia, USA.
Fitch
J L
JL
Wolfe
V I
VI
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010700:Phonetics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results