Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T16:40:01.429Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sound change and social structure in a rural community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Timothy C. Frazer
Timothy C. Frazer
Affiliation:
Department of English, Western Illinois Univeristy
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most studies of sound change in the United States have focused on the social strata of urban societies. In the American cornbelt, however, the most important social distinctions are horizontal rather than vertical. A fundamental ethnic division dating back to original settlement of the area opposes town and countryside dwellers. A study of fifty-one speakers in a rural area of Illinois shows fronting and raising of (aw) to be considerably more advanced among countryside dwellers than among town residents. Furthermore, the countryside population underwent a profound social and economic change during the past half century as large numbers of subsistence farmers abandoned the land and rural life altogether, leaving behind a smaller number of farmers whose larger operations meant that the economic and social status of the average farmer considerably improved. An examination of town and countryside age groups from the data base shows that an increase in the fronting and raising of (aw) took place primarily in a single generation most affected by the change in the farm population. At least temporarily, fronted and raised (aw), despite an overt nonstandard status documented in more than a century of speech and language textbooks, suddenly acquired a new prestige – spreading even to town populations – along with a reassertion of rural values and rural life. (Sound change, social structure, rural society, American English, sociolinguistics, dialectology)

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1983, pp. 313 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Callary, R. E. (1975). Phonological change and the development of an urban dialect in Illinois. Language in Society 4:155–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carmony, M. (1977). The regional vocabulary of Terre Haute. Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 3(1):3–34.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K., & Trudgill, P. (1980). Dialectology. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, S. J. (1878). History of McDonough County, Illinois. Springfield, lll.: D. W. Lust.Google Scholar
Doyle, D. H. (1978). The social order ofa frontier community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Eisonson, J. (1958). The improvement of voice and diction. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Frazer, T. C. (1978a). The settlement history of the North Central States. Unpublished ms. for introductory volume of The linguistic atlas of the North Central States.Google Scholar
Frazer, T. C. (1978b). South Midland pronunciation in the North Central States. American Speech 53:40–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazer, T. C. (1979). The speech island of the “American bottoms”: A problem in social history. American Speech 54:185–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazer, T. C. (1982a). Language variation in the military tract. Western Illinois Regional Studies 5:54–64.Google Scholar
Frazer, T. C. (1982b). Joseph Kirkland's Zury as linguistic evidence. American Speech 57:190–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauchat, T. (1905). L'sunité phonétique dans le patois d'une commune. In Fesrschrift Heinrich Morf. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Gordon, M. J. (1974). Speech improvement. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Hartman, J. (1981). Unpublished paper presented to American Dialect Society, December.Google Scholar
Hermann, E. (1929). Lautveraenderungen in der individualsprache einer Mundart. Nachrichten der Gesellisch der Wissenschaften zu Gouingen. Phil-his Kll., 11:195–214.Google Scholar
Jensen, R. (1968). The lvinning of the midwest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kirkland, J. (1881). Zury: The meanest man in Spring County. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co.Google Scholar
Krapp, G. P. (1925). The English language in America. 2 vols. New York: Frederic Ungar.Google Scholar
Kroch, A. (1978). Towards a theory of social dialect variation. Language in Society 7:17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurath, H., & McDavid, R. I. Jr, (1961). The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1963). The social motivation for a sound change. Word 19:273–309. Reprinted in Labov (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). The social setting for linguistic change. In Labov, W., Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1980). Locating language in time and space. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Labov, W., Yaeger, M., & Steiner, R. (1972). A quantitative study of sound change in progress. Philadelphia: United States Regional Survey.Google Scholar
Marckwardt, A. (1957). Principal and subsidiary dialect areas in the North Central States. Publication of the American Dialect Society no. 27:3–15.Google Scholar
Martindale, D., & Hanson, R. G. (1969). Small town and the nation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Co.Google Scholar
McDavid, R. I. (1948). Postvocalic /-r/ in South Carolina: A social analysis.” American Speech 23:194–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDavid, R. I., & McDavid, V. (1960). Grammatical differences in the North Central States. American Speech 35:5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, B. S. (1981). Lexical diffusion and southern tune, Duke, news. American Speech 56:72–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, R. L. (1953). Planting cornbelt culture. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society.Google Scholar
Russell, W. (1843). Primary reader. Boston.Google Scholar
Shuy, R. (1962). The Northern-Midland dialect boundary in Illinois. Publication of the American Dialect Society no. 38.Google Scholar
Shuy, R., Wolfram, W., & Riley, W. K. (1967). A study of social dialects in Detroit. Final Report, Project 6–1347. Washington, D.C.: Office of Education.Google Scholar
Turner, F. J. (1920). The frontier in American history. New York.Google Scholar
Warner, W. L. (1949). Democracy in Jonesville. New York: Harper and Brothers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, J. (1945). Plainville. U.S.A. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willard, S. (1840). The general class book. Greenfield, Mass.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D. (1946). Radio pronunciations. New York: King's Crown Press.Google Scholar