Phonological factors

According to Martinet (1955: 333), ‘phonemes shift their target positions and their fields of dispersion in order to preserve their margin of security.’ For martinet, phonological variation is governed by the need to maximize the distinctiveness of phonemes. The instability of the phonetic system, Martinet observes, is due to the presence of two pressures: psychological, and a preference for symmetrical and

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asymmetrical constriction of the organs of articulation. He claims that there has always been the tendency to maintain a balance in the height of front and back vowels, and a tendency to have a fewer distinction in the back because there is a small physiological space to differentiate back vowels. Moulton (1962) asserts that the position of the allophones of /a:/ in Northern Switzerland is highly determined by the configuration of other low and mid long vowels in the front and back. This is consistent with Handricourt and Juilland (1949) who believes that fronting of the nucleus /u/ and /o/ in many dialects of English is to reduce the number of back vowels from four to three. There is also a fronting of the long back vowels in American English dialects prior to the merger of long vowels. Labov (2001) explains that the chain shift of vowels could be seen as a conformity to Martinet’s principles of maximising margins of security in a way that maximised the efficiency of communications.

There has been a lot of scholarly works that explain Martinet’s concept of phonemic maximization. It is a common knowledge that in phonetics, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a sound and its pronunciation, a phoneme is actually described by the segments that surround it. That is, how a speaker articulates a given phoneme will depend on what precedes or follows that phoneme. The two syllables /bi/ and /ba/, for example, though audibly share one phoneme /b/, the acoustic signal that corresponds to /b/ in both cases differs significantly (see Liberman, et al., 1967: 435, fig. 1). While the syllable /bi/ has an F2 that begins at a relatively higher frequency, /ba/ has an F2 that begins at a lower frequency. Hence, being followed by the high vowel /i/ instead of the low vowel /a/ influences the way /b/ is realised. Two different audible phonemes may also share the same acoustic features depending on contexts. The ‘pu ka pu’ experiment reveals that the acoustic signal that corresponds to /p/ is almost similar to that of /k/ in the contexts /pi/ and /ka/ (Cooper et al., 1952 for his pi ka pu experiment).

So, due to coarticulation, signals lack clear segmentations of categorically perceived phonemes, which have been likened to beads on a string (Bloomfield, 1933).

Ladefoged (2006) examined the effects of sound environment on the articulation and production of plosives. In this experiment, he observed that the shape of the formant transitions during the stop articulation varied according to the preceding and following vowels. The stop must start at the formant frequencies of the preceding vowel or end at the formant frequencies of the following vowel. That is, during the articulation of a

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vowel [æ], for example, there will be formants that correspond to the particular shape of the vocal tract, these formants will be present as the lips close for the syllable such as [p^hæ] and will have frequencies that correspond to the shape of the vocal tract as the lips come apart. So before the closure of the plosive /p/ is released, the shape of the vocal tract is already formed for the vowel and so when the closure is released the formants will move accordingly.

The acoustic features of three English stops: bilabial, alveolar and velar produced by an American English speaker examined by Ladefoged (2006) confirm that the three stops are differentiated by offset and onset of the second and third formants (F2 & F3) of vowels. When the words such as bi or ba are said, the tongue will be in the position for the vowel even as the lips are closed. So, the formant frequencies at the moment of release of the plosive will be determined by the shape of the vocal tract as a whole, and so will vary according to the vowel. Thus, in all the three places of articulation examined by Ladefoged, F1 rises from a low position as a result of the following vowels but moves from a high position when the stops are preceded by vowels. Bladon and Al-Bamerni (1976) reported a similar coarticulatory effect of the liquids /l/ on F2 and F3 frequencies of adjacent vowels. This was reiterated in Tunley’s (1995), where she compared the F2 and F3 frequencies of vowels in /rV/ syllables with those of /lV/ and /hV/. She noticed a significant lowering effects of /l/ and /r/ on F2 of adjacent vowels.

She, for instance, realised that both F2 and F3 were highly significantly lower in vowels after /r/ than /h/, and that /l/ only has a significant effect on F2 frequency.

A single phoneme in a language can, therefore, be realised differently in different environments, all English vowels, although orals, become nasals before the nasals /m, n, /. The vowel /ɔ:/ in ‘fought’ [fɔ:t] will be realised differently when before /m/ in

‘form’ /fɔ:m/=[fɔ̃:m], while / / in ‘love’ [l v] is different from the one in ‘sun’ [s ̃n].

The nasalisation of /ɔ/ before /m/ is thus basically a phonological process; the articulators responsible for the articulation of the bilabial nasal /m/ in the word ‘form’

will be in anticipation for the nasal /m/ as the vowel /ɔ/ is being made. Hence, by the time /ɔ/ is half-way through its articulation, the velum is already down in anticipation of the articulation of /m/, allowing air through both the oral and nasal cavities simultaneously, thereby lending some nasal resonance to the oral vowel /ɔ/⁓[ɔ̃].

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The length of a vowel also depends on whether it precedes a voiced or voiceless consonant, occurs in a stressed or unstressed syllable, or whether it occurs in an open or closed syllable. The vowel /ɒ/ in the syllable ‘dog’ /dɒɡ/ when measured will be longer than the one in ‘dot’ /dɒt/. Reetz and Jongman (2009) measured the length of the vowel /aɪ/ in the unstressed syllable ‘sight’ of the word insight [ˈɪnˌsaɪt], and in the stressed syllable ‘cite’ of incite [ˌɪnˈsaɪt]. They noticed that /aɪ/ with a primary stress was longer than the one without a primary stress. Vowels in open syllables also tend to be longer than those in enclosed syllables. The vowel /i/ will be longer in the open syllable of bee than the one in the closed syllable in beat. The vowels in the two syllables are better represented as [iː] and [ɪ] respectively (Reetzs & Jongman, 2009).

The difference between the two RP vowels /ə/ and / ː/, is simply that of a difference in stress (i.e. they differ in duration, pitch and amplitude); whereas / ː/ occurs in stressed environment /ə/ does not. These findings are very significant in that any possible variations between /ə/ and / ː / in the current sample may be practically a phonological factor.

3.2.1.4. Imitation

Linguistic variation, to a large extent, is believed to be caused by imitation. As observed by Bloomfield (1933), speakers constantly adapt their speech habit to that of their interlocutors; they either give up forms they have been using and adopt new ones, or change the frequency of the forms they have without entirely abandoning old ones while accepting new ones. ‘The acquisition of foreign words, for example, by fashion into another culture, their assimilation by custom, the contagion of accent, and the tyranny of usage in itself are all signs of imitation’ (Labov, 2001: 312). In the view of Tarde (1873), language in itself is a phenomenon of imitation that is propagated from high to low (superior to inferior), whether it is without or within a nation. There is, for instance, transfer of features from speakers with higher socioeconomic status to those at the lower side. Linguistic variables are constantly under pressure by the society; a feature is considered either stigmatised or prestigious because of the social meaning of such a variable (s) to the society.

The direction of the imitation has however been debated among linguists; while some believe that sound imitation is initiated by people below the socioeconomic rank,

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others think otherwise. For Labov (1978), a change can be initiated from above or from below. In a generational change, for instance, the upper classes have been implicated as the motivators of prestigious change from above while lower classes lead unnoticed change from below (Labov, 1990). In all cases, however, the leading social groups are followed by the others as the linguistic change diffuses through the social hierarchy.

According to Labov (1966), pressure from above is the result of overt social pressures consistent with the social hierarchy, expressed openly. These are seen from the attitudes of school teachers, and in the conscious reactions of some middle class speakers. Change from below is, however, expressed as a gradual shift in the behaviour of successive generations, which is below the level of conscious awareness of any speakers. This kind of shift begins with a particular group, usually low status group in the social structure, and is gradually internalised or accepted by other groups unconsciously (Labov, 1966). It is, therefore, not surprising to observe a speech pattern stigmatised by dominant social classes being maintained over long period of time, ‘even in the face of an opposing set of values that do not readily emerge in formal situation’

(Labov, 1972b: 313). A stigmatised feature used over a long period of time by dominant social groups can subsequently become the established norm. An example of this is the glottalisation of the final stop /t/ which is currently found in the speech of royals (Wells, 1962).

Giles’ (1973) speech accommodation theory explains further the concept of speech imitation and change. This theory states that in speech, speakers either converge; shift their speech pattern to resemble that of their interlocutors, or diverge; shift away from the speech of other speakers to accentuate the linguistic differences between them and other interlocutors (Giles, 1973). Speech convergence occurs mostly among speakers with similar attitudes, beliefs or personalities. It is thus common to see people belonging to the same social group, e.g. age, gender, class, etc. speaking the same way. But this is not always the case because many speakers do this for a reason, for example, for favour or for appraisal, or as a politeness strategy, or to show solidarity (Giles, 1973).

It is common to see a business man with high social class converging to the speech pattern of his working-class client either for price reduction or for a future transaction.

In the same way, a parent may change their speech pattern to sound like that of their children. A similar phenomenon has been reported by Trudgill (1986) in Norwich,

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where he observed that there were several variations in his own pronunciation of the glottal stop [ʔ] which collocated with the same amount of glottal stop used by his interviewees. Thus convergence in speech sometimes results to loss of group identity or personal integrity.

It is important to note, however that in speech speakers do not only accommodate by converging, they also sometimes divergence. This happens when members of a group want to keep their group identity, or identify themselves with another group.

Speech divergence is also a powerful tool employed when a speaker wishes to distance themselves from other speakers, especially when he or she sees the other speakers as undesirable people. That is, speech divergence is either used to signal group membership, or to identify oneself with a particular social or cultural group (Giles, 1973). Labov’s (1963) Martha’s Vineyard is a typical example of speech divergence.

In this experiment, Labov discovered that the Islanders moved away from the standard New England pronunciation, the speech of the newcomers, towards a pronunciation typical of the conservative Vineyard speakers. He stated that some of the fishermen on the island exaggerated their usage so as to identify themselves as an independent social group with superior status to the despised summer visitors. When a business man with a high social status converges to the speech pattern of his working-class client, he is in effect diverging from the speech of his upper class group. Speech divergence happens even among minority language or dialect groups. For example, Tongu dialect speakers of E e in Ghana are most often heard speaking A lɔ dialect when they meet an A lɔ dialect speaker. In this case they are converging to the A lɔ dialect, and in effect diverging from their Tongu dialect. The implication of this is that speakers do not rigidly restrict themselves to group norms, they make linguistic choices based on several factors such as their impression about the other interlocutors, or make choices to project a particular personae. It is, therefore, clear that anyone can lead sound imitation, whether from the upper side on the socioeconomic scale or from the lower side.