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

世界各地，特别是欧洲的社会变化正在改变着长期存在的传统方言。许多这样的方言正在向国家或地区标准靠拢。安达卢西亚西班牙语的变体提供了一个有趣的案例研究，两个曾经合并的声音现在分裂（或分离）回两个独立的类别，这一过程被称为分离。在这种情况下，ceceo，或正字法s和z的中和，c（i/e）到不发音的前牙背摩擦音[s…È]，自中世纪西班牙语以来就存在，目前分别分化为两个独立的音，[s]和[…È]，与卡斯蒂利亚标准的distinci¨®n融合。Ceceo和distinci¨n都带有社会价值，说话者的社会身份取决于他们所遵循的规范。本研究记录了安达卢西亚韦尔瓦省的分离。它比较了两个语言社区：(i)首都韦尔瓦，它反映了新的、更国际化的欧洲不断扩大的社会网络；（ii）勒佩，该省的一个农业城镇，反映了一个更古老、更省道的欧洲，但它拥有更强大的社会网络。本研究试图回答以下问题：(1)哪些因素对说话者表现出分裂而不是合并的可能性贡献最大（年龄、性别、本地网络、教育程度、职业等）；(2)冠状摩擦辅音的声学特征与每个地区的说话者产生的各种正字法表示相对应；(3)这种分拆对某些词的影响是否比其他词更大？研究问题将通过访谈资料进行调查，并借鉴变异社会语言学、实验室音韵学、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的分离体现了当地传统方言使用者面临的社会压力，要求他们向更标准的特征靠拢，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.