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 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
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
18
01
18
11
18
21
18
31
18
41
18
51
18
61
18
71
18
81
18
91
19
01
19
11
19
21
19
31
19
51
19
61
19
71
19
81
19
91
20
01
Date
West Mersea
East Mersea
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
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 Manner of Articulation
- Overall
0
20
40
60
80
100
Stop Fricative Nasal Affricate Approximant [sp] None
0
20
40
60
80
100
boy boys
0
20
40
60
80
100
boy boys boy's
0
20
40
60
80
100
boy boys boyfriend boyish
◄ Museum Speakers
Older Speakers ►
◄ Younger Speakers
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)
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