1.2. Similar research

Preston (1999, 38) stresses the need for research along the lines of the current study stating, “I believe that future work in the perception of variety might focus more specifically on the exact linguistic elements that give rise to perception rather than on the global presentation of varieties (or variety or area labels) in eliciting responses.” This point is further emphasized in Preston (forthcoming) when he reiterates, “An important area to explore in perceptual dialectology…was the influence, importance, and role of single features (or groups of features) rather than just the consideration of such global constructs as ‘Southern accent’.” By integrating both production and perception studies, this study addresses this issue by beginning to pick apart the “global construct” of the Southern accent in order to determine the relative contribution of several features to the accent of speakers of the Southern variety of English.

Earlier studies have had related goals. In an examination of the traditional raised production of /ɔ/ in the Outer Banks, North Carolina, Wolfram, Hazen, & Schilling-Estes (1997) conducted a perception study using 56 speakers from Raleigh, North Carolina asking listeners to rate four variants of the /ɔ/ vowel from the most Northern-sounding to the least Northern-sounding and from most Southern-sounding to least Southern-sounding. Their results showed that traditional Outer Banks /ɔ/ patterned more closely to Northern variants than nearby mainland Southern variants.

Preston (forthcoming) also mentions unpublished studies done by Grimes (2002) and Torbert (2004) in which samples testing vowel or consonantal features (within words) were presented to listeners to examine the effect of individual features (as opposed to whole varieties) on attitudes. Both studies showed that well-established Southern features may have different degrees of salience, even those in which the community under study participates. Of Grimes (2002), Preston states (forthcoming, manuscript 23), “This study makes it clear that not all authentic Southern features have equal affective perceptual value.” However, these projects studied isolated features and utilized a dichotomy of Southern versus not Southern. The current study is aiming to determine which feature(s) gives rise to a percept of more Southern versus less Southern.

Fridland, Bartlett, and Kreuz (2004) conducted a study testing listeners’ perceptions of a chain shift taking place in the Southeastern U.S. (among other areas of the world) called the Southern Vowel Shift (SVS) whereby the variable (ay) is monophthongized and fronted, the nuclei of front high and mid tense and lax vowels essentially reverse positions², and the back vowels move forward.

1.3 Previous studies looking at feature clusters

Studying how an individual feature affects perceptions of Southernness is valuable, but a type of synthesis of the individual studies is needed. As Moore (2004:393) states, “Variables are only meaningful in as much as they are constituents of a sociolinguistic style.” Her study investigates the use of features among teenage groups at “Midlan High” in northwest England called “Townies” and “Populars” and the ways in which they use many of the same features, but index different identities by using them at different frequencies and in different situations. Most crucially, it is the combination of features present at a given time, rather than the specific ones being used within the combinations that index the particular identity.

Another study which has looked at how systems of features can work together at differing levels to jointly create style is that done by Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell-Kibler (2002). They looked at five variable features often associated with gay speech in order to examine how the speaker in their study used them together to create a certain identity. In their conclusion, they encourage further research of this kind: “We would like to emphasize that there is a need for additional studies investigating how sets of variables cluster together to form gay styles and all linguistically constructed styles” (187).

In connection with the research reported in the next few chapters, the eventual goal in the current research is to uncover how a speaker might evoke the perception of a more Southern linguistic style versus a less Southern linguistic style.