Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Acoustic Analysis of Regional Variation in African American English

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Under the direction of Dr. Scott F. Kiesling, Maeve Eberhardt will undertake an acoustic analysis of the regional variety of African-American English (AAE) spoken in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Using the instrumental tools of sociophonetic research, this project will define the vowel space of Pittsburgh AAE and investigate the social patterning of vocalic variables within the community. A major goal of this project is to determine whether African-Americans use a selection of local dialect features, which contrast with one another both in terms of the type of linguistic change they represent, and in the level of social awareness associated with them. The use of sociolinguistic interviews, designed to elicit information about speakers' experiences in Pittsburgh, specifically their experiences as African-Americans in this city, will allow a holistic analysis of the connection between sociolinguistic variables, local orientation and racial identity. This work adds to a burgeoning line of research in which scholars are turning their attention to regional varieties of AAE. It contributes to the body of work which explores African-American participation in or avoidance of sound changes occurring in local varieties, testing the claim that African-Americans do not participate in such changes. This research thus confronts assumptions about AAE which until recently have remained largely unquestioned, and challenges the field to depart from a purely racially-based definition of AAE and move towards one founded on regional linguistic characteristics, as done for other varieties of English. Finally, the results of this study will be relevant to early literacy and reading programs for African-American children around the country. The ever-widening achievement gap between White and African-American students demands attention from scholars of AAE, given that African-American children often experience substantial dialectal interference when learning to read. This research has the potential to directly impact tailored reading programs based on regional phonological characteristics, thereby building important links between sociolinguistic research and the education of children within the African-American community.