5 US States

Milton   Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:10 pm GMT
Some Canadian accents for you to compare:


St. John's NL (it sounds very Western, but not Californian,more like Colorado or Arizona English):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFylt-rCGs


New Brunswick (it sounds a bit like Vermont, but with a French flavor):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYlltEFXRoY


Windsor English (a bit Californian):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euUyxaD5evc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnM_7ZMMZCg

Barrie Ontario English (like in Fargo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFylt-rCGs


As for the realization of the DON/DAWN vowel,
in St. John's it's always unrounded [É‘], in Windsor and Toronto [É’] can be heard, but [É‘] is preferred...Rounded pronunciation [É’] is preferred in Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver: God [gÉ’d], mom [mÉ’m], cock/caulk [kÉ’k], cot/caught [kÉ’t]...
?   Fri Jun 05, 2009 2:25 am GMT
Do these newscasters really have strong local accents?
kris   Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:15 am GMT
I really think it depends on the speaker, not so much the region of these c-c merged areas. I just recorded myself now and compared it to a recording of myself like 5 years ago. I noticed that in the earlier recording I had a very unrounded c-c vowel, and no CVS, and now I seem to have picked up a little bit of a chain shift, as I notice that my ash vowel is sometimes something like [a], and I often have a rounded c-c vowel. I live in the same place as before. I must be picking up the teenager accent. Has anyone else noticed their speech changing even when living in the same place?
Milton   Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:39 pm GMT
''I must be picking up the teenager accent. ''

There is an article on Vancouver English, and realizations of the Don/Dawn/Cot/Caught vowel:

1. rounded pronunciation is more common (60%) compared to the unrounded one (40%)
2.roundedness is more common in a) middle aged and older women, and
b) young men
3. unroundedness is more comon in a) older men and b) young girls

The authors think Vancouver English has been changing, from more unrounded pronunciation to the more rounded one, but there is an INVERSE TREND, lead by young females, so, they predict in some time, Vancouver Don/Dawn vowel will more likely to be unrounded again (as in conservative Western General American) than rounded (as in Valley Girl, Bostonian or WestPA English).

Source:
The low vowels of Vancouver English:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TErI6TW5UtIC&pg=PA395&dq=vancouver+english++rounded+vowels&lr=&client=firefox-a&hl=pt-BR
Milton   Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:53 pm GMT
In Vancouver, raised and back pronunciation of vowels is an indicator of lower socioeconomic status of male population...

More info:


''While male speakers differ in their production of /A/, this vowel is not a social indicator for female speakers''

source:

Sociophonetic variation in Vancouver


http://books.google.com/books?id=ifl9ajM20fMC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=vancouver+english+vowels&source=bl&ots=angzEiqReo&sig=sCXDChxfsgfOOchtLDtdQr8oTtQ&hl=pt-BR&ei=5BApStjVCcvdsga0q-ngCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA125,M1
apple   Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:46 pm GMT
Isn't the unrounded pronunciation the more conservative one? According to William Labov's theory, it makes sense that the youngest part of the population would have the more conservative form, because they would learn it directly from their mothers, who would have preserved the form that they used when they were adolescents. However, the young people (especially the girls) would acquire the rounded pronunciation when they became a little older, and thus would not be able to reverse the trend.
Leslie   Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:04 pm GMT
Apple, this is not true.
According to Labov, young women are leaders in linguistic changes, not old women.
leslie   Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:06 pm GMT
In Ottawa English, unrounded pronunciation [A] is preferred in a more formal register, and in text reading, so it is kind of prestigeous there ([Q] is seen more as informal, even ''sloppy'' or '''slangy'')...
apple   Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:31 pm GMT
It is true that the *youngest* girls have the unrounded forms, but what I am saying is that they will switch to the more progressive, rounded forms when they become adolescents. Thus the trend will not reverse itself.

@Leslie,
Sorry, but how can any allophone of the merged vowel sound "slangy" or "sloppy". If you have the merger, then by definition, you can't hear any difference between the vowel sounds. I have the merger, for example, and I can't hear any difference at all between the rounded vs. unrounded forms.
Leslie   Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:02 pm GMT
Do you have the same vowel in ALL/DOLL, CALLER/DOLLAR, HONG KONG / LONG SONG? Is it rounded or unrounded?


''I have the merger, for example, and I can't hear any difference at all between the rounded vs. unrounded forms''

If you can hear the (un)roundedness in SORRY, TOMORROW [A vs Q] then you should be able to hear it in the Cot/Caught, All/Doll, Hong Kong/Long Song set as well...


Canadian actors in Hollywood NEVER use the rounded vowel in ''John, lot, mom'' and most of them don't use it either in the ''caught, all/doll, long song'' set(s) either. So, I guess, they have an accent coach to eliminate the CVS and Canadian raising (but they always keep the Don/Dawn merger although to an unrounded /A/ vowel, just in Standard Western General American). Actors in movies and sitcoms made in Canada sound markedly different from Canadians in Hollywood (Jim Carrey, Pamela Anderson, just to mention some names)...
apple   Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:21 pm GMT
I have /A/ in sorry and /O/ (which I associate with /o/) in tomorrow. Yes I can hear the difference between the vowel in sorry and tomorrow, but I cannot hear the difference in don or caught or mom.
sorry   Sat Jun 06, 2009 2:26 am GMT
Don't sorry and tomorrow have /Q/?
3285   Sat Jun 06, 2009 6:14 pm GMT
Aren't the sorry-tomorrow merger and the cot-caught merger different things? Even if you can't hear the difference between cot and caught, I don't see how anyone could be unable to hear the quite distinctly different vowel sounds in sorry and tomorrow.
Lipstick   Sun Jun 07, 2009 4:20 am GMT
Watch your lips in the mirror: if your vowel is rounded: it's /Q/, if it's not it's /A/, if sounds British, it's rounded, ''John, lot, God'' with the rounded vowel sounds so British, and so not General American...
apple   Sun Jun 07, 2009 4:39 am GMT
OK I tried it. Sorry is unrounded, tomorrow is rounded on the second vowel.