Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rethinking Sociophonetics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Northern Cities Chain Shift

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Dennis Preston, Mr. Bartlomiej Plichta will conduct sociophonetic research in the Detroit metropolitan area for his doctoral dissertation. The project investigates two current, yet unresolved, issues in dialectal aspects of speech production and perception. Over the years, researchers have established that speech perception is a very complex phenomenon and that accurate comprehension of spoken language relies on the integration of numerous types of stimuli, including auditory, visual, linguistic, and personal. A substantial group of English speakers in the Detroit metropolitan area exhibit pronunciation features known as "The Northern Cities Chain Shift." Although much is already known about the pronunciation of vowels, accurate phonetic descriptions of other important aspects of pronunciation in this speech community are lacking. The first study investigates the dialectal use of nasalization, a feature that is often reported in so-called "folk perceptions" of dialects. The second study investigates the role of dialectal information in comprehending spoken language. The ultimate goal of this research project is to demonstrate that dialectal features play a crucial role in the production and perception of speech. The results of this study will broaden our understanding of language variation, which should be of great value to sociolinguists, as well as educators, speech pathologists and audiologists. This research may also have important implications for the construction of cognitive and computational models of spoken language.