"Southern Accent" features in local news in both the Deep South and Southern periphery: Comparing Meridian, Mississippi to Tallahassee, Florida

Dekker, Ryan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/118076 Copy

Description

Title

"Southern Accent" features in local news in both the Deep South and Southern periphery: Comparing Meridian, Mississippi to Tallahassee, Florida

Author(s)

Dekker, Ryan

Issue Date

2023-05-19

Keyword(s)

Linguistics

Abstract

A comparison of two media markets and their phonological Southern United States English (SUSE) features found that Meridian, Mississippi, a ‘Deep South’ market, had more representations for SUSE features than a Southern periphery market of Tallahassee, Florida. 20 total broadcasters were included in this sample, with both markets including four anchors, two meteorologists, one sports anchor, and three investigative reporters. Mississippi broadcasters led in the SUSE feature of the PIN-PEN merger, quantified via Pillai score of 0.047, where a lower number indicates a stronger merger than Florida’s 0.148. Mississippi broadcasters retained more of the Southern Vowel Shift (SVS), highlighted by a closer /e/-/ɛ/ proximity and a more distinct /ɑ/-/ɔ/. These tendencies were even more apparent when preceding non-sonorant consonants, an important marker when comparing dialect features (Becker 2019). However, going against the hypothesis of a ‘Deep South’ market leading in all SVS features, Florida broadcasters (484 Hz) narrowly led Mississippi (489 Hz) in a more glide weakened /aɪ/, measured in Euclidean distance from the 20% duration to the 80% duration. While there existed instances of a purely monophthongal /aɪ/, most pronunciations were more diphthongal, which was likely due to the social salience of this stigmatized SUSE form (Labov et al. 2006). The only statistically significant predictor of /aɪ/ glide weakening was job title, where p = 0.012. For both markets, it was the sports anchors among all other job titles who led in the most glide weakened /aɪ/, possibly indexing covert prestige with SUSE pronunciations tied to their specific topic. For both markets, it was the investigative reporters who had the least glide weakened /aɪ/, likely because they occupy an entry level position among the oncamera broadcasters and they may seek to be hired in another, possibly non- Southern market and would avoid the socially salient glide weakened /aɪ/.

Publisher

Studies in the Linguistic Sciences: Illinois Working Papers

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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