Doctoral Dissertation Research: The effect of dialect contact and social identity on fricative demerger

世界各地的社会变化，特别是在欧洲，正在改变由来已久的传统方言。许多这样的方言正在向国家标准或地区性标准靠拢。各种安达卢西亚西班牙语提供了一个有趣的案例研究，在这个案例中，曾经合并的两个声音现在分裂(或拆分)为两个独立的类别，这一过程被称为拆分。在这种情况下，ceceo，也就是正字法S和z，c(i/e)的中和，自中世纪西班牙语以来就存在于无声的牙背前摩擦音[S？]，目前正在分解为两个独立的音，[S]和[？]，分别与卡斯蒂利亚标准Diffi？n汇合。Ceceo和Disti？n每个都具有社会价值，说话者的社会身份根据他们遵循的规范来判断。本研究记录了安达卢西亚韦尔瓦省的分拆情况。它比较了两个语言社区：(I)首府韦尔瓦，反映了不断扩大的社交网络带来的新的、更国际化的欧洲；(Ii)勒佩，该省的一个农业城镇，反映了一个更古老、更狭隘的欧洲，但拥有更强大的社交网络。这项研究试图回答以下问题：(1)哪些因素对说话人出现分裂而不是合并的可能性影响最大(年龄、性别、本地网络、教育程度、职业等)；(2)每个地区说话人产生的各种正字法对应的冠状摩擦辅音的声学特征是什么；以及(3)这种分离对某些单词的影响是否比其他单词更大？研究问题将通过访谈数据进行调查，借鉴变异主义社会语言学、实验室音系学、社会语音学、社会方言学和语言人类学的方法和解释框架。Ceceo的分离说明了说当地传统方言的人面临的社会压力，要求他们向更标准的特征趋同，即使这与语言变化的自然过程相反。

Societal changes across the world, particularly in Europe, are altering long-standing traditional dialects. Many such dialects are converging towards national or regional standards. Varieties of Andalusian Spanish present an intriguing case study where two sounds that had been merged are now splitting (or demerging) back into two separate categories, a process known as demerger. In this case, ceceo, or the neutralization of orthographic s and z, c(i/e) to the voiceless predorso-dental fricative [s¦È], in existence since medieval Spanish, is currently demerging into two separate sounds, [s] and [¦È], respectively, converging with the Castilian standard known as distinci¨®n. Ceceo and distinci¨®n each carry social value and the social identities of speakers are judged depending upon which norm they follow. The present research documents the demerger in the Andalusian province of Huelva. It compares two speech communities: (i) the capital city of Huelva, which reflects the new, more cosmopolitan Europe of expanding social networks; and (ii) Lepe, an agricultural town of the province, reflecting an older, more provincial, Europe, but one with stronger social networks. This study seeks to answer the following: (1) which factors contribute most to the probability that a speaker will manifest a split rather than a merger (age, sex, local networks, education, profession, etc.); (2) what are the acoustic profiles of the coronal fricative consonants corresponding to various orthographic representations produced by speakers of each region; and (3) does this demerger impact certain words more than others? The research questions will be investigated through interview data, drawing on the methods and interpretive frameworks of variationist sociolinguistics, laboratory phonology, sociophonetics, social dialectology, and linguistic anthropology. The demerger of ceceo exemplifies the social pressures placed on speakers of local traditional dialects to converge towards more standard features, even if contrary to natural processes of language change.