This study presents acoustic evidence of diachronic accent change of an adult speaker who relocated to a region characterized by dialect features different from those of his home region. Noam Chomsky was chosen as the subject because he examplifies the effects of relocation on adult phonology. Chomsky was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but at his age 27, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. Three linguistic variables that have different systems in Philadelphia and Boston were examined in this study: (1) /A/-/O/ distinction in Philadelphia and /A/-/O/ merger in Boston, (2) the split short-a system in Philadelphia and the nasal system in Boston, and (3) strong fronting of /o/ in Philadelphia and moderate fronting in Boston. Acoustic analyses of Chomsky’s public speech in 1970 and 2009 show that his /A/ has significantly shifted along both F1 and F2 over the 40 years, while /O/ remained stable. Despite the substantial shift of /A/, this change has not led to a merger of two vowel categories. Meanwhile, his short-a pattern has gone through a striking phonemic reorganization over the 40-year period; Chomsky exhibited the unsplit pattern in 1970 but by 2009 he appears to have adopted a (somewhat incomplete) nasal system. With regard to /o/, he did not show any significant change, exhibiting only moderate fronting both in 1970 and 2009. This study demonstrates remarkable intraspeaker changes over a lifetime, although the changes did not reach categoricity. Possible social and phonetic factors that play an important role in these changes are discussed. keywords: dialect shift, vowel changes, intraspeaker changes, stigmatized social markers, coarticulatory nasality This study presents acoustic evidence for longitudinal vowel shifts of a speaker who relocated as an adult to a region that is characterized by dialect features different from those of his home region. The question of the extent to which phonological changes can occur in the speech of an adult has received relatively little attention in the linguistic literature: stability of adult phonology has long been assumed to be the default case. A strong view of human cognitive development even posits that a speaker’s phonology is hard wired or fixed in the brain by adolescence; changes after adolescence, Noam Chomsky: A Case Study of Dialect Shift 271 if any, take place at the lexical or discourse level only (e.g., Trudgill 1986). In this connection, it has been established that the degree of acquisition of a second regional dialect is inversely correlated with a speaker’s age and age of arrival. In a study of six Canadian-born preteens and teenagers who emigrated to Oxfordshire in southern England, for example, Chambers (1988, 1992) showed that two of the older subjects, the 14-year-old and the 17-year-old, had made no progress in acquiring the unmerging of low back vowels, whereas the two youngest subjects showed 80–90% unmerging. Thus, he concluded that younger speakers have advantages in acquiring seconddialect phonology and that older speakers tend to fail in learning complex phonological rules of a second dialect. Payne (1976) also emphasized that speaker age and age of arrival are the most important predictors in acquiring second-dialect features. In a study of the acquisition of various phonological and phonetic variables by 34 children who had moved to King of Prussia, a suburban area of Philadelphia, she showed that the youngest group (age 0–4) had the highest proportion of Philadelphia glides, followed by their immediate elders, those who arrived between 4 and 9 years of age. The majority of children between 10 and 14 years of age did not acquire even the simple rules of a second dialect. She, therefore, concluded that, for full acquisition of second-dialect features, children need to be exposed to the phonetic and phonological rules by age 9 or 10. These early findings regarding children’s second-dialect acquisition imply that acquiring phonological rules of a second dialect is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for adult speakers. However, there is mounting evidence demonstrating adult speakers’ capability of acquiring second-dialect phonology well beyond the critical period.1 Shockey (1984), for example, shows four native speakers of American English who moved to Essex as adults reduced flapping to a significant extent. Conn and Horesh (2002) illustrate the successful acquisition of second-dialect vowel features by two adult natives of Michigan who moved to Philadelphia; one subject did not modify her production of (æ), but showed quantitative changes in the fronting of /o/, while the other speaker did not show any change in the /o/-fronting, but came to show some distinction between unraised and raised /á/. Nycz (2011) finds that, out of 17 native Canadians who moved to the New York City region as adults, 11 speakers show evidence of having acquired a phonemic distinction between /A/ and /O/. While the previous research has made significant contribution to enhancing our understanding of the nature of second-dialect acquisition by adult speakers, due to the paucity of the studies, we still have limited knowledge regarding the following questions: Are speakers capable of modifying their american speech 93.2 (2018) 272 PRO OFS phonological systems in their adulthood? If so, is the modification limited to a subphonemic level, or can it occur at a higher level? If one succeeds in making a qualitative phonological change, how successful is the mastery of the acquisition of the rule? Given that making changes to a phonological system past the critical period is exceptional or hard to achieve, what is the driving force of the change? Do social factors come into play? The present study addresses these questions by investigating the longitudinal vowel shifts in Noam Chomsky’s speech between 1970 and 2009. Noam Chomsky was chosen as a speaker of the study since his speech is an excellent example of a long-term accent change as a result of relocation. He was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but at age 27, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. This study, therefore, contributes to a growing body of research documenting the extent of the changes a mobile adult exhibits by tracking possible vowel changes across the life span of a second-dialect learner.

中文翻译：

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诺姆乔姆斯基的语音和音韵变化

本研究提供了一位成年说话者的历时口音变化的声学证据，他们搬迁到一个以不同于其家乡地区的方言特征为特征的地区。诺姆乔姆斯基被选为研究对象，因为他举例说明了搬迁对成人音系的影响。乔姆斯基在宾夕法尼亚州的费城出生和长大，但在他 27 岁时，他搬到了马萨诸塞州的波士顿。本研究考察了在费城和波士顿具有不同系统的三个语言变量：（1）费城的 /A/-/O/ 区别和波士顿的 /A/-/O/ 合并，（2）拆分短 a费城的系统和波士顿的鼻系统，以及（3）费城的 /o/ 强前倾和波士顿的中度前倾。对乔姆斯基 1970 年和 2009 年公开演讲的声学分析表明，40 年来，他的 /A/ 在 F1 和 F2 上都发生了显着变化，而 /O/ 保持稳定。尽管 /A/ 发生了重大变化，但这种变化并没有导致两个元音类别的合并。与此同时，他的短a模式在40年间经历了惊人的音位重组；乔姆斯基在 1970 年展示了未分裂的模式，但到 2009 年，他似乎采用了（有些不完整的）鼻系统。关于 /o/，他没有表现出任何显着的变化，在 1970 年和 2009 年都只表现出适度的前倾。这项研究表明，在一生中发生了显着的说话人内部变化，尽管这些变化没有达到分类标准。讨论了在这些变化中发挥重要作用的可能的社会和语音因素。关键词：方言转变、元音变化、说话者内部变化、被污名化的社会标志、辅音鼻音 本研究提供了一个说话者纵向元音转变的声学证据，他在成年后搬迁到一个方言特征不同于其家乡地区的地区。在语言学文献中，关于成人语音中音韵变化的程度的问题很少受到关注：长期以来，成人音韵的稳定性一直被认为是默认情况。对人类认知发展的强烈看法甚至认为，说话者的音系在青春期就已经固定或固定在大脑中了。青春期后的变化，Noam Chomsky：方言转变案例研究 271 如果有的话，只发生在词汇或话语层面（例如，Trudgill 1986）。在这方面，已经确定，第二地方方言的习得程度与说话者的年龄和到达年龄呈负相关。例如，Chambers (1988, 1992) 在一项针对移民到英格兰南部牛津郡的六名加拿大出生的青春期前和青少年的研究中表明，其中两个年龄较大的受试者，即 14 岁和 17 岁，在获得不合并下背元音方面没有取得任何进展，而两个最年轻的受试者表现出 80-90% 的不合并。因此，他得出结论，年轻的说话者在获得第二方言音韵方面有优势，而年长的人往往无法学习第二方言的复杂音韵规则。Payne (1976) 还强调说话人年龄和到达年龄是获得第二方言特征的最重要预测因素。在对搬到费城郊区普鲁士国王的 34 名儿童获得的各种语音和语音变量的研究中，她表明，最年轻的群体（0-4 岁）的费城滑翔比例最高，其次是由他们的直系长辈，即 4 至 9 岁之间抵达的人。大多数 10 至 14 岁的儿童甚至没有掌握第二方言的简单规则。因此，她得出的结论是，要完全获得第二方言特征，儿童需要在 9 岁或 10 岁之前接触语音和音韵规则。这些关于儿童第二方言习得的早期研究结果表明，获得第二方言的语音规则对于成年人来说，方言是极其困难的，如果不是不可能的话。然而，越来越多的证据表明成年说话者能够在关键时期之后获得第二方言音韵学。1 例如，Shockey (1984) 表明，四名母语为美国英语的人在成年后搬到埃塞克斯郡，从而在很大程度上减少了拍打。Conn 和 Horesh (2002) 举例说明了搬到费城的两名密歇根本地人成功获得了第二方言元音特征；一个被试没有修改她的 (æ) 的产生，但在 /o/ 的前置出现了数量变化，而另一个说话者在 /o/-前置没有任何变化，而是在未升起和提出 /á/。Nycz (2011) 发现，在成年后移居纽约市地区的 17 名加拿大本土人中，11 位发言者展示了在 /A/ 和 /O/ 之间获得音位区别的证据。虽然之前的研究对提高我们对成人说话者第二方言习得的性质的理解做出了重大贡献，但由于研究的缺乏，我们对以下问题的了解仍然有限：说话者是否能够修改他们的美语口语？ 93.2 (2018) 272 成年后的 PRO OFS 语音系统？如果是这样，修改仅限于亚音位水平，还是可以发生在更高的水平？如果一个人成功地进行了质的音韵变化，那么掌握规则的习得有多成功？鉴于在关键时期之后对语音系统进行更改是特殊的或难以实现的，变革的动力是什么？社会因素起作用了吗？本研究通过调查 1970 年至 2009 年间诺姆·乔姆斯基讲话中纵向元音的变化来解决这些问题。诺姆·乔姆斯基被选为该研究的发言人，因为他的讲话是搬迁导致长期口音变化的一个很好的例子. 他在宾夕法尼亚州的费城出生和长大，但在 27 岁时，他搬到了马萨诸塞州的波士顿。因此，这项研究有助于越来越多的研究，通过跟踪第二方言学习者一生中可能发生的元音变化来记录移动成人所表现出的变化程度。Noam Chomsky 被选为该研究的发言人，因为他的演讲是搬迁导致长期口音变化的一个很好的例子。他在宾夕法尼亚州的费城出生和长大，但在 27 岁时，他搬到了马萨诸塞州的波士顿。因此，这项研究有助于越来越多的研究，通过跟踪第二方言学习者一生中可能发生的元音变化来记录移动成人所表现出的变化程度。Noam Chomsky 被选为该研究的发言人，因为他的演讲是搬迁导致长期口音变化的一个很好的例子。他在宾夕法尼亚州的费城出生和长大，但在 27 岁时，他搬到了马萨诸塞州的波士顿。因此，这项研究有助于越来越多的研究，通过跟踪第二方言学习者一生中可能发生的元音变化来记录移动成人所表现出的变化程度。