Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 13:38:09 -0500
From: "J. Chambers" chambers[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPAS.UTORONTO.CA
Subject: Re: diversity of accents
Regarding Tim Frazer's & Rudy Troike's recollections of the hearing
children of deaf parents who couldn't learn English by watching
television, the only written reference I know is Susan Ervin-Tripp
(1973) "Some strategies for the first two years," in Timothy Moore,
ed., Cognition and the Acquisition of Language. NY: Academic Press. 261-86.
I cite Ervin-Tripp with some others as evidence that mass media do NOT
affect speech in any significant way. Although there is a widespread
popular belief that the mass media are highly influential
linguistically, they seem completely uninfluential apart from the most
superficial level, namely the dissemination of lexical items.
(Yabba-dabba-doo!)
This discussion is in "Sociolinguistic dialectology", my chapter in
Dennis Preston's new ADS centennial vol., American Dialect Research,
published by Benjamins.
Jack Chambers
This discussion is part of "Sociolinguistic dialectology,
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Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 14:06:07 -0500
From: "J. Chambers" chambers[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPAS.UTORONTO.CA
Subject: Re: diversity of accents revisited
I just sent a message to you ADS networkers in response to Tim Frazer
& Rudy Troike, who were at the top of my message list (i.e., the most
recent) when I signed on. Then, as I worked my way down (temporally as
well as list-wise) I discovered that my message should have been more
general because Natalie and others have been looking in vain for a
discussion in print on the issue. So I am pleased to say that my
chapter in Dennis's ADS centennial vol. includes that discussion on
pp. 138-40 (plus cross refs to other parts of that chapter). As far as
I know, it is the only discussion so directly on that topic--or so
generally. But I cite a couple of articles (Ervin-Tripp, Labov,
perhaps some others) that impinge upon it. I look at my e-mail about
once a week on average, and I often wish it accumulated with the
oldest at the top, so I could follow the chronology without having to
reconstruct it. --Jack
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Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 13:38:42 -0600
From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU
Subject: Mail Order / Pin-Pen / LAGS
I look at my e-mail about
once a week on average, and I often wish it accumulated with the
oldest at the top, so I could follow the chronology without having to
reconstruct it. --Jack
I bet you can change it to accumulate that way. Oldest-at-top is, I
think, a much more usual method than the way yours works.
Speaking of old mail, I remembered while driving to Alabama the other
day that I had not replied to a list posting I had read hurriedly and
meant to reply to later -- the one from Rudy expressing fear that his
"pen" and "pin" were beginning to separate. I also have noticed lately
a strange vowel sound creeping into my pronunciation of words like "pen"
and "ten." I don't know what's causing it but do find it distressing.
God intended "pen" and "pin" to be homophonous.
On still another topic, do any of you know the latest price and ordering
info for LAGS? I'm about to fight one more time for our library to order
it. Since I've let a couple of years go by since my last attempt, I've
forgotten the ordering info.
--Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)
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Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 13:11:24 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: Mail Order / Pin-Pen / LAGS
Natalie--
I sympathize re the emergence of an alien /e/ in pen , etc. Once
when I was teaching ESL in an intensive program, surrounded by /en/-users
(and /hw/-users), I was distressed to find both /en/ and /hw/ creeping into
my speech unbidden. It really took some effort to repress them. The latter
tends to recur whenever I am doing phonology in an English linguistic class,
and model the which : witch contrast. As an interesting indication that
I use spelling clues to determine whether a vowel is /In/ or /en/ in foreign
varieties (I follow McDavid in trying to avoid the confusing term "dialect"),
it took me years to find out that "others" use an /e/ in friend .
Hope y'all out there (=Natalie and everyone else on-line) had a good
Thanksgiving.
--Rudy Troike
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 14:07:31 -0600
From: Tim Frazer mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU
Subject: Re: diversity of accents
Dear Rudy,
The book is available from University of Alabama Press for $27.95.
HEARTLAND ENGLISH, ed. Timothy C. Frazer, 1993.
We require all teacher ed. majors (at WIU) to take an English language
course which is 1/4 history of the language and 3/4 sociolinguistics.
I hope it addresses some of the problems you were talking about.
-- Tim Frazer
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 14:16:00 CDT
From: Beth Lee Simon BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU
Subject: egg-aig
Oh Rudy, Natalie,
Same difference here. The first year I taught in Wisconsin,
we all went around the room and said the word "egg". And my initial
was quite lovely, quite different from most of the others. Not any more.
And I don't even want to talk about what's happened to my vowel in
"milk".
beth
simon
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Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 14:30:37 -0600
From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Mail Order / Pin-Pen / LAGS
(and /hw/-users), I was distressed to find both /en/ and /hw/ creeping into
my speech unbidden. It really took some effort to repress them. The latter
tends to recur whenever I am doing phonology in an English linguistic class,
and model the which : witch contrast. As an interesting indication that
Odd though it may be, I've always had /hw/. But I've certainly never had
the /En/:/In/ contrast -- or at least not until these very recent vocalic
oddities I've noticed.
I think I've probably told before about how for several years when I first
started teaching linguistics courses I gave "then" and "thin" as a useful
minimal pair in helping the students hear voiced/voiceless th. Suddenly
it dawned on me one day that that wouldn't work for everybody -- although
it did, of course, work for most of my students.
--Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 14:25:47 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: egg-aig
Beth,
My sympathies. I remember when my sister spent a year going to high
school in Avon, Illinois, and came back rhyming hill and hell ! Oh,
Ellinois!
--Rudy
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 14:33:53 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: Mail Order / Pin-Pen / LAGS
Natalie--
I've certainly done the same thing. then and thin are a minimal
pair, aren't they? I also used to confidently give singer and finger as
near-minimal pairs, until I once had a student from Long Island!
It reminds me of the ESL teacher who was once dutifully drilling the
cot : caught contrast because it was in the book, and then came in to
complain to me that the students couldn't hear the difference. When I asked her
to pronounce the words, of course she did not have it. For students who are
linguistically disadvantaged in this way, it is a great object lesson in th e
nature of phonemic contrasts.
--Rudy
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End of ADS-L Digest - 27 Nov 1993 to 28 Nov 1993
************************************************
There are 12 messages totalling 501 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. egg-aig, and dialect diversity
2. Rock'n Roll (2)
3. egg-aig, and dialect diversi
4. Georgetown University Round Table 1994
5. th/dh (5)
6. Language variation
7. "Rock 'n Roll"
---------------