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  • The influence of suburban development and metropolitan fragmentation on language variation and change: Evidence from Greater St. Louis
Title: The influence of suburban development and metropolitan fragmentation on language variation and change: Evidence from Greater St. Louis
Abstract The distances between urban and suburban spaces, while small in Euclidean terms, have a rather large social reality. This paper calls attention to two reasons for this—suburban development and metropolitan fragmentation—and situates these phenomena within the context of sociological and historical thought about metropolitan areas. I test their role in linguistic variation through a case study of three Northern Cities Shift features (raised trap , fronted lot , and lowered thought ) in English of the St. Louis metropolitan area. I show that these features diffused throughout the region in three different ways. Additionally, phonological conditioning of lot -fronting differs between urban and suburban speakers, and retreat from urban dialect features is led in the suburbs. These findings highlight the need to consider the geography of metropolitan areas more deeply in studies of language variation and change in metropolitan areas, as similarity across a metropolitan area should not be assumed a priori .  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1651102
PAR ID:
10175781
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Linguistic Geography
Volume:
7
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2049-7547
Page Range / eLocation ID:
82 to 97
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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