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English World-Wide
Vol. 38:3 (2017) ► pp.336–363

Revisiting the kit-split in Coloured South African English

| University of Cape Town

This paper seeks to provide a detailed sociophonetic analysis of kit vowel variation in Coloured South African English (CSAfE). 40 Coloured speakers (20 male; 20 female) from middle-class and working-class backgrounds were analysed using methods of automatic vowel measurement. 2,253 tokens of kit were isolated into phonological environments which condition the split: before and after velar consonants /k, g/, before /ŋ/, before palato-alveolar consonants /ʧ, ʃ, ʤ, ʒ/, after /h/, and word initially. Working-class CSAfE speakers displayed a wider split in the set: they used a higher and fronter variant in all conditioning environments, approximating [ɪ], while tokens in the unconditioned environments were produced in the region of [ə]. Middle-class speakers displayed a definite split, conditioned by the same environments, but with a smaller distance between the two values. The binary split maintains its vitality in this variety of South African English.

Keywords: South African English, kit vowel, social class, Coloured, kit split, social change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background to the study
    • 2.1Coloured South Africans
    • 2.2Language use in the Coloured community
    • 2.3Post-apartheid changes in education
  • 3.Descriptions of kit world-wide
    • 3.1Literature on WSAfE
    • 3.2Literature on CSAfE
  • 4.Sample
  • 5.Methodology
  • 6.Findings: Acoustic results
    • 6.1A binary split
    • 6.2Mean values: kit
    • 6.3Middle- and working-class differences in kit
    • 6.4Stylistic differences
    • 6.5Vowel length
    • 6.6Gender
  • 7.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.38.3.05toe
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