Collaborative Research: The Chicagoland Language Project

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Regions of the United States have been shown to have their own distinct language dialects. However, recent research in the region around the Great Lakes has shown movement away from a regionally specific accent, with new linguistic norms emerging. In linguistics, the processes through which regionalized sound changes alter course requires an understanding of historical changes in places where such changes occur, as well as an examination of individual speakers’ awareness, evaluations, and ideologies about the features undergoing change. This study engages in a detailed analysis of how sociohistorical processes, relating to migration histories and current and past racial dynamics, affect the spread of language change in Chicago, a major urban center in this region. In addition to advancing the understanding of language, culture, and history in this important region of the U.S. and advancing theories regarding language change, this project provides opportunities to train underrepresented students in conducting scientific research and produces a publicly-available database of oral histories highlighting important community issues. The investigators will collect ethnographic interviews from lifelong community members in three neighborhoods of Chicago, perform acoustic analyses of the data, and experimentally assess social evaluations of specific place-linked linguistic features through a series of perception experiments. These data and analyses will provide insight into the current status of sound change reversals in Chicago and, more generally, how and why sound changes propagate across and within communities. The outcomes of this work speak directly to current debates about the nature of sound change and the current and future trajectory of American English. The project’s creation of a Chicago speech corpus, accessible to other scholars for broader analyses, will also lead to long term advances in sociolinguistic research in the U.S. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.