New York, Philadelphia, and other northern cities: phonology

We will describe characteristic features of accents heard in some of the largest cities in the United States. The discussion considers two eastern cities, New York and Philadelphia, as well as the area around the Great Lakes which includes Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. In terms of the traditional dialectological classification, these locations represent a mixture of dialects (Kurath 1949). Philadelphia is squarely within the Midland region, while New York City is grouped as part of the North but is seen as constituting its own subregion. The Great Lakes area represents the core of the Inland North, a subregion of Northern speech that stretches from western New England to roughly the Mississippi River.

 

Compared to other varieties in the U.S. and elsewhere, the dialects discussed here have been studied quite extensively by linguists. This is particularly true in the case of New York which has attracted regular dialectological interest since Babbitt’s 1896 report (e.g., Hubbell 1950; Thomas 1942). Much of the research on New York speech, as well as on that of Philadelphia and the Inland North, has focussed on the kinds of traditional features studied by dialect geographers. This information is valuable, but a description of contemporary speech patterns will also benefit from a more dynamic perspective, one that considers changing usage of older features as well as adoption of recent innovations. For this reason, much of the description here relies on sociolinguistic research, especially the work of William Labov who has written on New York City (1966), Philadelphia (2001), and the changes operating in the Inland North (Labov, Ash and Boberg fc.). Sociolinguistic research of this type is particularly well suited to the investigation of the speech of large urban areas because it examines a broad spectrum of the community of speakers rather than concentrating on any one segment of society. Still, even the best sociolinguistic studies cannot fully consider the rich social diversity of the populations of major cities like those discussed here. As a general caveat, therefore, it should be noted that the features described below characterize the speech of some, but certainly not all, people of these areas.

الاكثر قراءة في Phonology

Minimal pairs and sets

Aspiration

Phones and allophones

Finding the underlying form

Assimilations

The Sonority Sequencing Generalization

Major class features

Feature geometry

Standard lexical sets

Place of articulation

Bukusu: nasal+consonant combinations

Allophony in other languages

Floating tones

Natural classes

Dissimilation

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

عباس.. طفل فقد والده فوجد في خدمة زائري عاشوراء وطنًا آمنًا

شعبة الخطابة النسوية تواصل إقامة مجالس العزاء في شهر المحرم الحرام

لليوم الخامس.. العتبة العباسية المقدسة تقيم مجلس عزاء في صحن مرقد أبي الفضل العباس (عليه السلام)

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يقيم مجلس عزاء حسيني في العاصمة التنزانية دار السلام

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

لمن تجاوز الستين.. عليك بشرب 4 أكواب من القهوة يوميا ؟

الحليب مع العسل.. مزيج يمنحك 7 فوائد صحية

لا تبالغ في التنظيف.. قليل من "الاتساخ" قد يحمي عائلتك

دراسة تكشف علاقة خطيرة بين عمر الأم وصحة مولودها

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

هل هاتفك مراقب؟.. 5 علامات خطيرة تكشف التجسس عليك

دبي تطلق أول رحلة تجريبية للتاكسي الجوي

كيف تساعد الصيانة الوقائية في الحفاظ على كفاءة التكييف في سيارتك ؟

في ظاهرة غريبة حيرت العلماء.. كوكبنا قد يسجل أقصر يوم في التاريخ هذا الصيف!

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Spelling and Pronunciation SUMMARY

American English vs. British English

Morphological Basis of English Spelling

Phoneme–Grapheme Correspondences in English Vowels

Phoneme–Grapheme Correspondences in English Consonants

Spelling and Pronunciation Irregularity of English Spelling

Structural Factors in Second Language Phonology SUMMARY

Perception

Optimality Theory (OT)

Ontogeny Phylogeny Model (OPM)

Markedness

Hypercontrast