NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in New Zealand

Seyfarth Scott J, San Diego CA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds Scott Seyfarth of the University of California, San Diego to conduct a research project in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences area during the summer of 2013 at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. The project title is "Usage-Based Factors for Vowel Change in New Zealand English." The host scientist is Elizabeth Hume. This project uses data from a large historical speech corpus hosted at the University of Canterbury to study causes for vowel change in New Zealand English. The corpus is being evaluated for the contribution of usage variables, such as word predictability, the probabilities of different vowel types, and the salience of near-homophones, to vowel centralization and the front vowel shift in New Zealand English. These factors have been shown to influence vowel articulation in everyday speech, and so the goal is to assess whether they may also have influenced the long-term vowel changes in progress, or whether the changes are better accounted for by sociolinguistic analysis. The project contributes to scholarship on vowel system typology, phonetic category maintenance, and the phonetics and phonology of New Zealand English over the last century. Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, this research promotes the exchange of work being done on the sound systems of global Englishes, including among the multi-disciplinary, international linguistics and cognition researchers at the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain, and Behavior. The results of the research will contribute to the Origins of New Zealand English Project at the Institute, and will be shared with the wider linguistics community.