Examining the (mini-) variable swarm in the Spanish of the
Southeast
The present investigation aims to facilitate our
understanding of Spanish in the Southeastern United States – a
region that despite its rapid growth over the last two decades, has
received little attention in the literature. Analyses of four
linguistic variables indicated that while second generation heritage
speakers produced significantly more English discourse markers than
first generation immigrants, realization of phonetic variables was
similar across groups. An examination of the overall patterns across
the four variables (i.e., “variable swarm”), however, suggests that
heritage speakers are beginning to integrate contact-induced
characteristics into their speech faster than immigrants do. By
examining multiple variables simultaneously, the present study
therefore offers important insight into the processes of new dialect
formation, convergence, and leveling in an understudied region.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Overall methodology
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Data collection
- 2.3Aligner
- 3.Lenition of /bdg/
- 3.1Previous research
- 3.2Methodology
- 3.3Results
- 4.The vowel system
- 4.1Previous research
- 4.2Methodology
- 4.3Results
- 5.Rhythm
- 5.1Previous research
- 5.2Methodology
- 5.3Results
- 6.Bilingual discourse markers
- 6.1Previous research
- 6.2Methodology
- 6.3Results
- 7.Discussion: The “swarm”
- 8.Conclusions
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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