Oh Boy! An analysis of the diphthong // in Mersea Island

English

Jenny Amos

Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex

Sociolinguist Essex 2010

The Variable () • Labelled by Wells (1982) as the CHOICE vowel

• Occurs in both open and closed syllables, such as:

Boy

Oyster

Moist

Join

Present day // has three Middle English sources, but Wells

notes that “all CHOICE words are believed to be ultimately

loan words, mainly from French” (1982:209)

Distributional Patterns

Mono-morphemic Words

• Word finally, // cannot be followed by non-coronals and may only precede the clusters /st/ and /nt/

[], [], [] vs. *[], *[], *[]

• Word medially, // may precede all oral stops (except /g/), only the coronal fricatives /s z/ and the approximant /l/. However, it cannot precede nasals or affricates.

[], [], [], [] vs. *[], *[]

• Also, word medially, the only cluster that may follow //

is /st/ e.g. []

(Based on Hammond 1999)

Note that some of these restrictions are not valid

for complex words, that is, words of more than

one morpheme.

For example, word medially, // may be followed

by the glottal fricative /h/ in boyhood or the labio-

dental fricative /f/ in joyful and the cluster /nt/ in

pointer.

The variable () – Historical Development:

The three sources

1. Middle English // The words which derived from this set include:

Boy, Oyster and Noise

2. Middle English /ui/

The words deriving from this set include:

Oil, Boil (v) and Join

Wells (1982) notes that, in some dialects, the items deriving from

this set developed into [] or [] . As a result, these

became homophonous with the PRICE set.

3. Middle English /i:/

The CHOICE set is completed by some lexical items which

contained Middle English /i:/ and therefore, these should

have developed into /ai/ during the Great Vowel Shift along

with the rest of the PRICE set.

For example, due to this, employ split from imply:

// vs. //

Historical Data

Data from Ellis (1889) shows that, in some parts of Essex, the

split with tokens from Middle English /ui/ was still active.

Tokens such as boy, from Middle English //, had a rounded

[ ~ ] diphthongal nucleus while those such as spoil and oil

had an open [a] nucleus. This is also supported by data from

across Essex presented by Kurath and Lowman (1970)

However, the SED does not show this split as active in the data

from East Mersea, Tiptree or West Bergholt. Instead, the

data shows variation between [] and a centralised []. Therefore, in East Mersea, for example, both voice and boil

(v) have the same diphthong.

Modern Studies

Unfortunately, there has been no systematic sociolinguistic study of (), but it has been

mentioned in passing by general dialect surveys.

The predominant result is that, in present day British English, the CHOICE set has the standard //

diphthong.

Studies that suggest a pronunciation other than this

are Trudgill (1999) and Tollfree (1999)

Trudgill (1999:130) observes that, in Norwich, the lexical

item boil has a noticeable PRICE vowel, though he remarks

that this feature is very recessive. Other variants noted range from the most traditional [] to standard []

Tollfree (1999:168) notes a range between [] and [] in

South East London while younger speakers may use a very advanced or centralised nuclues [].

The current study

The Location Mersea Island is a small island off the coast of north-east Essex. It is a

traditional fishing community, whose population has more than doubled in

the last forty years primarily due to new housing developments. The

Census for West Mersea shows the population at 3140 in 1961 and 6925

in 2001

Popluation of Mersea Island based on census data from 1801 to 2001

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Date

West Mersea

East Mersea

Mersea

Island

Colchester

The data The data consists of 286 tokens of () which were extracted from 28 speakers

across three age groups and both genders:

Museum Old (59-75) Young (18-25)

Male 5 7 5

Females -- 7 4

The tokens from the old and young speakers were extracted from informal

sociolinguistic interviews conducted between 2006 and 2007.

The recordings analysed from the local museum’s archives were all from

1979 and were informal interviews of local people conducted at the local

council offices.

Linguistic Analysis - Coding

As well as the social factors of:

• Age (M, O, Y)

• Gender (M, F)

tokens were coded according to the following linguistic factors:

• The Variant produced [ ~ ~ ~ ]

• The Preceding environment

• The Following environment*

• Open or closed syllable (e.g. joy vs join)

• Word type (BOY vs Other)

Note: the results from this data set will not be discussed in this presentation

Results – Social Factors

Age

0

20

40

60

80

100

Museum Old Young

Age and Gender

0

20

40

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100

Male Female Male Female Male

Young Old Museum

Results – Linguistic Factors

Syllable Type - Overall

0

20

40

60

80

100

Open Closed

Syllable Type – by Age and Gender

0

20

40

60

80

100

Open Closed Open Closed Open Closed

Young Old Museum

0

20

40

60

80

100

Open Closed Open Closed

Young Old

Males

Females

Preceding Place of Articulation

- Overall

0

20

40

60

80

100

Labial Coronal Dorsal Word-initial [sp]

Preceding Manner of Articulation

- Overall

0

20

40

60

80

100

Stop Fricative Nasal Affricate Approximant [sp] None

The BOY effect

0

20

40

60

80

100

boy boys

0

20

40

60

80

100

boy boys boy's

0

20

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60

80

100

boy boys boyfriend boyish

◄ Museum Speakers

Older Speakers ►

◄ Younger Speakers

BOY vs. Other

- Museum

0

20

40

60

80

100

BOY other

BOY vs. Other

- Older

0

20

40

60

80

100

BOY other

However, even though the amount of data is restricted, this

effect seems to be receding as the younger group does not appear to have the [] variant to the same degree as the

previous generation, even in the context of BOY tokens.

The asymmetry between BOY tokens and Other tokens is

clear for both age groups. This suggests a type of lexical

effect has attached to BOY and has thus enabled it to

preserve the traditional dialect feature to a greater extent

than other words.

Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (2006, for example) talk about

‘dialect performances’ where speakers enhance the

vernacular for demonstration purposes within interviews, for

example.

Included in the performance might be particular

performance phrases. These are specific rote phrases

which highlight a number of dialect features. Therefore, it is

noticeable that ‘boy’ features frequently in the performance phrase ‘My boy’ [ ] among speakers who wish to

comment on or demonstrate the local accent.

Summary

Even though the standard [] variant is prominent across each of the studied age groups, it seems that other, more centralised variants are now lost within the younger generation.

However, it seems that females of the older generation are retaining more of the traditional variants than the males of their age group.

It seems, at first glance, that preceding manner and place of articulation appear to have a impact on the production of the centralised and rounded variants (with labials and stops encouraging [] more than other environments).

However, these results do not reflect the apparent lexical effect of BOY tokens on the data which, when compared to all other words, demonstrate a strong retention of [] variants.

References

Ellis, A.J. (1889) On Early English Pronunciation, Part V – The Existing Phonology of English Dialects compared with that of West Saxon Speech; Early English Text Society. [unaltered reprint 1999]; Woodbridge (UK)

Hammond, M. (1999) The Phonology of English – A prosodic optimality-theoretic approach; OUP (UK)

Kurath, H. and Lowman, G. (1970) The dialectal structure of southern England; Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press

Tollfree, L. (1999). South East London English: discrete versus continuous modelling of consonantal reduction. Urban Voices. P. Foulkes and G. Docherty, Arnold (UK).

Trudgill, P. (1999). Norwich: endogenous and exogenous linguistic change. Urban Voices. P. Foulkes and G. Docherty, Arnold (UK)

Wells, J. (1982) Accents of English (Vol 1); CUP (UK)

Wolfram, W. and Schilling-Estes, N. (2006). American English (2nd Edition), Blackwell (UK).

Wright, J. (1905) The English DialectGrammar; [lithographically reprinted 1968]; OUP (UK)