Skip Navigation


Literary and Linguistic Computing Advance Access originally published online on September 5, 2006
Literary and Linguistic Computing 2006 21(4):445-462; doi:10.1093/llc/fql039
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
21/4/445    most recent
fql039v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Clopper, C. G.
Right arrow Articles by Paolillo, J. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ALLC and ACH. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

North American English Vowels: A Factor-analytic Perspective

Cynthia G. Clopper and John C. Paolillo

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA

Correspondence: Cynthia G. Clopper, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 2016 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. E-mail: c-clopper{at}northwestern.edu
Previous studies of American English have identified a number of robust patterns involving the vowel system, such as the Northern Cities Chain Shift and the Southern Vowel Shift. These studies primarily employ methods which treat separately the phonetic properties of specific vowels as produced by individual speakers which are later assembled into complete vowel systems. While this provides a useful picture of production, it is not adequate for comparison with dialect perception studies, where interpretation of the results often requires some understanding of the correlations among linguistic features and between those features and individual talkers. We conducted a factor analysis of the duration and first and second formant frequencies of each of the fourteen vowels produced by forty-eight speakers representing six regional varieties of American English and both genders. The data were submitted to factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation and Varimax rotation. Results confirmed significant correlations between regional dialect and acoustic–phonetic properties of the vowel systems, although these patterns are complicated by interactions with gender. These results illustrate the utility of factor analytic methods in examining systematic variation across an entire linguistic system such as the vowels.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Journal of English LinguisticsHome page
R. G. Shackleton Jr.
Phonetic Variation in the Traditional English Dialects: A Computational Analysis
Journal of English Linguistics, March 1, 2007; 35(1): 30 - 102.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.