An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis of American English Dialectology

Abstract

We are in a period of globalization and immediate communication, and this discussion of American English (AmE) offers a very counterintuitive fact: our local accents are not becoming homogenized or homogenous; they are actually becoming even more differentiated. Relying on enormous acoustic surveys such as the Atlas of North American English (ANAE) this study illustrates that change in language occurs in a systematic manner in which we are getting a process of chain shifts i.e. Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCVS) and Southern Vowel Shift (SVS) that are tearing our regional systems of sound apart. The testament to this is immense by analyzing both geographical and non-geographical varieties, including the much-complicated structure of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that is rule-based and shows that the American voice is becoming more pronounced, rather than less.