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dc.contributor.authorGross, Johan
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-03T06:49:43Z
dc.date.available2018-09-03T06:49:43Z
dc.date.issued2018-09-03
dc.identifier.isbn978-91-7833-126-0
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2077/56659
dc.description.abstractUntil now, sociolinguistic investigations of Gothenburg have been scarce. This compilation thesis provides some of the first steps in a quantitative investigation of language variation and change in the city. Its results suggest that sociolinguistic variation ought to be studied with a bottom-up approach investigating on the one hand relationships among variables in what might be a coherent linguistic system and on the other hand the intersection of a range of social categories, rather than relationships between one category and one variable at a time. In three of the articles, analyses of variation in long vowel productions (and in one, also perceptions) are carried out. In the remaining article, the interaction between the informants in the activity used to collect data is described and analyzed. The data used for the articles are drawn from two corpora with young adolescents living in Gothenburg (and Stockholm): the SUF corpus, which consists of recordings of 222 informants collected for another project, and the SSG-corpus, material collected for this dissertation, which consists of recordings of 111 informants in two activities, an interview and a map-task. Acoustic and statistical analysis were carried out and analyzed on parts of both corpora. The second study in the collection describes how a map-task can be used as a sociolinguistic tool to collect a large number of tokens in a relaxed interaction between friends. The results from the first article in the collection show that variation in production of /ɛ:/ is related to the foreign vs. Swedish background of young informants in Gothenburg, but no significant differences were found in Stockholm. The third paper in the collection investigates not only this vowel but also eight other long vowels (or allophones). The acoustic and statistical analyses show that the pattern of variation can be captured by considering how foreign background conflates with socio-economic status and educational background. These categories can be captured by considering neighborhood as a factor, due to housing segregation in Gothenburg. The final paper provides acoustic and perceptual evidence that there is an incipient merger between /i:/ and /y:/ in Gothenburg. It also suggests that the reason behind the direction of this vowel merger is that lip-rounding is a perceptually weak feature, so the merger is in the direction of rounded to unrounded and not vice versa. Two general conclusions can be drawn from the thesis as a whole. The first is that to understand and describe sociolinguistic variation, proper attention needs to be given to how social categories intersect in a specific context before a study of the meaning attached to variation can be carried out. The second pertains to the ontological status of sociolinguistic variables. Some variables are undergoing widespread change; others are more locally bound. The adolescents in segregated suburbs can both be seen to lead widespread changes while not participating in more local variation and change. This pattern might indicate an orientation away from local dialectal norms.sv
dc.language.isoengsv
dc.relation.haspart1. Gross, Johan, Boyd, Sally, Leinonen, Therese, & Walker, James A. (2016). A tale of two cities (and one vowel): Sociolinguistic variation in Swedish. Language Variation and Change. 28: 225–247. ::doi::[https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394516000065]sv
dc.relation.haspart2. Forsberg, Julia, & Gross, Johan. (unpublished). “You change your speech depending on who you talk to, but I didn’t change much”: The map-task viewed through the lens of audience design.sv
dc.relation.haspart3. Gross, Johan. (in press). Segregated vowels: language variation and dialect features among Gothenburg youth. Language Variation and Change.sv
dc.relation.haspart4. Gross, Johan & Forsberg, Julia. (under review after revision) Weak lips? A possible merger of /i:/ and /y:/ in Gothenburg.sv
dc.subjectVowelssv
dc.subjectLanguage variation and changsv
dc.subjectSwedishsv
dc.subjectGothenburgsv
dc.subjectSociolinguisticssv
dc.subjectMap tasksv
dc.subjectYouth languagesv
dc.subjectSegregationsv
dc.subjectStockholmsv
dc.subjectPhoneticssv
dc.titleMapping vowels: Variation and change in the speech of Gothenburg adolescentssv
dc.typeText
dc.type.svepDoctoral thesiseng
dc.gup.mailjohan.gross@gu.sesv
dc.type.degreeDoctor of Philosophysv
dc.gup.originGöteborgs universitet. Humanistiska fakultetenswe
dc.gup.originUniversity of Gothenburg. Faculty of Artseng
dc.gup.departmentDepartment of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science ; Institutionen för filosofi, lingvistik och vetenskapsteorisv
dc.gup.defenceplaceFredag 28th September 2018 kl:10:15, Torgny Segerstedtssalen, Vasaparkensv
dc.gup.defencedate2018-09-28
dc.gup.dissdb-fakultetHF


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