This essay will look at speaker ethnicity, particularly African Americans, with a minor mention to Mexican Americans and Asian Americans. The question of how African Americans participate in the sound change in North America will be addressed, using Mather’s replica of the Department Store Study, originally conducted by Labov. As the original, the replica of the survey was “rapid and anonymous” (Labov, 2009) and therefore avoided the “observer’s paradox” (Labov, 2009). No factual evidence were recorded in regards to the interviewees’ socioeconomic variables, such as age and ethnicity. These two variables could have, potentially, been identified incorrectly as the reasoning was assumptive. Ethnicity will, nevertheless, be the main focus of this essay in relation to the North American sound change.
In the last hundred years, the prestige norm in the United States has changed and continues to change and is showing an …show more content…
The widespread belief that minority groups in the United States do not participate in sound changes is also contended by Mather. On the contrary, minority groups do participate. This is pointed out in the research concluded by Hall-Lew and Starr, who focused on young Asian Americans in San Francisco who were subject to the same ongoing merger of the low-back vowel classes as the whites in California, and Roeder’s research which looked into young Mexican American women’s pronunciation. He identified the women to have acquired one typical vowel of the Northern Cities Shift but not the other three. This shows that both minority group were, in fact, undergoing assimilation, even if Roeder’s research shows a differing pace. Assimilation can also be noted in African Americans from the findings of the replication of the Department Store
In the last hundred years, the prestige norm in the United States has changed and continues to change and is showing an …show more content…
The widespread belief that minority groups in the United States do not participate in sound changes is also contended by Mather. On the contrary, minority groups do participate. This is pointed out in the research concluded by Hall-Lew and Starr, who focused on young Asian Americans in San Francisco who were subject to the same ongoing merger of the low-back vowel classes as the whites in California, and Roeder’s research which looked into young Mexican American women’s pronunciation. He identified the women to have acquired one typical vowel of the Northern Cities Shift but not the other three. This shows that both minority group were, in fact, undergoing assimilation, even if Roeder’s research shows a differing pace. Assimilation can also be noted in African Americans from the findings of the replication of the Department Store