This study examines the use of the Northern Cities Shift (NCS) and local identity in a group of speakers from the Cleveland, Ohio area. Members of a suburban recreation center participated in audio recorded interviews, during which they answered questions about their personal background, their consumption practices, and their leisure activities, and engaged in conversation about their opinions and memories of the Cleveland area. Local identity was then scored using an identity index modeled after that in Kiesling, et al. (2005). A more locally loyal interview topic received a higher point value, while a less locally loyal topic received a lower point value. The sum of these values formed an overall identity score.
Tokens of both (aeh) and (e) were gathered from each speakers interview. Tokens of (o), (oh), (ey), and (iy) were also gathered as reference points within the vowel space of each speaker; these tokens were measured in a controlled, pre-fricative or alveolar stop environment. Using a Praat script, first and second formant measurements were gathered within the first third of each token. These measurements were then normalized.
Using multiple regression, the vowel measurements were modeled based on the identity score and other social factors, including sex and age, and linguistic internal factors. This produced no statistically significant results. However, several subsections of the overall identity score were found to be statistically significant.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08062007-140652 |
| Date | 19 September 2007 |
| Creators | McCarthy, Natalie Jean |
| Contributors | Scott F. Kiesling, Barbara Johnstone, Shelome Gooden, David Mortensen |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08062007-140652/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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