Cover not available
Part of
Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis
Edited by Sandro Sessarego and Fernando Tejedo-Herrero
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8] 2016
► pp. 241–260

Vowel raising and social networks in Michoacán

A sociophonetic analysis

| Bradley University

I present an acoustic analysis of variable vowel raising in rural Mexican Spanish. This process involves the mid vowels, /e/ and /o/, in unstressed post-tonic positions and their variable realizations as [e, i] or [o, u], respectively. I perform a sociophonetic analysis using the formant values of the relevant vowels and then examine the influence of social networks on this phenomenon. This study represents the first systematic description of vowel raising in the region. Additionally, I use social factors, such as time spent in and out of the community, to create social networks that capture subtle social differences. The results show more /e/ than /o/ raising and less raising overall for participants who have more interactions outside of Michoacán.

Keywords: social networks, sociophonetic variation, vocalic variation, vowel raising
Published online: 25 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.8.10bar
References
Barajas, J
(2014) A sociophonetic investigation of unstressed vowel raising in the Spanish of a rural Mexican community (Unpublished PhD dissertation). The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.Google Scholar
(2015) Vocalic weakening in the Spanish of Michoacán: Unstressed vowel raising and devoicing. Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, September 24-27.
Barnes, S
(2013) Morphophonological variation in urban Asturian Spanish: Language contact and regional identity (Unpublished PHD dissertation). The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.Google Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., Walker, S., Bojesen Christensen, R.H., & Singmann, H
(2014) Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4 (R package version 1.1-5). [URL]Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D
Praat: doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.3.45). Retrieved from: [URL] (15 April 2013).
Boyd-Bowman, P
(1960) El habla de Guanajuato. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.Google Scholar
Cohen, A.P
(Ed.) (1982) Belonging. Identity and social organization in British rural cultures. Manchester: University of Manchester Press.Google Scholar
Delforge, A.M
(2008) Unstressed vowel reduction in Andean Spanish. In L. Colantoni & J. Steele (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology (pp. 107-124). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Diez Canseco, S
(1997) Language variation: The influence of speakers’ attitudes and gender on sociolinguistic variables in the Spanish of Cusco, Peru (Unpublished PhD dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.Google Scholar
Giles, H., Coupland, N., & Coupland, J
(1991) Accommodation theory: Communication, context, and consequence. In H. Giles, N. Coupland & J. Coupland (Eds.), Contexts of accommodation: Developments in applied sociolinguistics (pp. 1-68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hillenbrand, J.M., & Clark, M.J
(2009) The role of f0 and formant frequencies in distinguishing the voices of men and women. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71(5), 1150-1166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmquist, J.C
(1985) Social correlates of a linguistic variable: A study in a Spanish village. Language in society, 14, 192-203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1998) High-lands high vowels: A sample of men’s speech in rural Puerto Rico. In C. Paradis, D. Vincent, D. Deshaies & M. LaForest (Eds.), Papers in Sociolinguistics: NWAVE-26 a l’Université Laval (pp. 73-79). Quebec: Université Laval.Google Scholar
(2005) Social stratification in women’s speech in rural Puerto Rico: A study of five phonological features. In L. Sayahi & M. Westmoreland (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the Second Workshop on Spanish Linguistics (pp. 109-119). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Hothorn, T., Hornik, K., Strobl, C., & Zeileis, A
(2013) Party: A laboratory for recursive partioning (R package version 1.0-13). Available from: <http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/party/party.pdf >Google Scholar
Jombart, T
(2008) Adegenet: A R package for the multivariate analysis of genetic markers. Bioinformatics, 24, 1403-1405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jombart, T., Devillard, S., & Balloux, F
(2010) Discriminant analysis of principal components: a new method for the analysis of genetically structured populations. BMC Genetics, 11, 94-108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, P
(2002) Koineization and Accommodation. In J.K. Chambers, P. Trudgill, & N. Schilling-Estes (Eds.), The handbook of language variation and change (pp. 669-702). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, J.M
(1979) Sobre el tratamiento de -e, -o finales en el español de México. In J.M. Lope Blanch (Ed.), Investigaciones sobre dialectología mexicana (pp. 35-40). México, DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Mewett, P
(1982) Associational categories in the social location of relationships in a Lewis crofting community. In A. Cohen (Ed.), Belonging (pp. 101-130). Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Milroy, L
(1980) Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
(1987) Observing and analysing natural language. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Milroy, L., & Gordon, M
(2003) Sociolinguistics: Method and interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moreno de Alba, J.G
(1994) La pronunciación del español en México. México DF: El Colegio de México.Google Scholar
Navarro Tomás, T
(1948[1999]) El español en Puerto Rico. San Juan: Universidad de Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
Oliver Rajan, J
(2007) Mobility and its effects on vowel raising in the coffee zone of Puerto Rico. In J. Holmquist, A. Lorenzino, & L. Sayahi (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 44-52). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
(2008) Vowel raising in Puerto Rican Spanish (Unpublished PhD dissertation). University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Parodi, C., & Santa Ana, O
(1997) Tipología de comunidades de habla del español rural al estándar. Nueva revista de filología hispánica, 45(2), 305-320.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team
(2011) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
San Juan, E., & Almeida, M
(2005) Teoría sociolingüística y red social: Datos del español canario. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana, 3(1), 133-150.Google Scholar
Traunmuller, H
(1997) Auditory scales of frequency representation. Available from: [URL]
Trudgill, P
(1986) Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Chappell, Whitney
2021. Chapter 8. ‘En esta petsa, este anio’. In Aspects of Latin American Spanish Dialectology [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 32], ► pp. 181 ff. DOI logo
García, Christina
2020. Seeds of change. Spanish in Context 17:3 ► pp. 438 ff. DOI logo
McKinnon, Sean
2023. Las vocales glotalizadas en el español guatemalteco: Un análisis sociofonético entre los hablantes bilingües (español-kaqchikel) y monolingües. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 16:1 ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.