Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-rkzlw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-30T00:29:08.435Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Canadian shift in Montreal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2005

Charles Boberg
Charles Boberg
Affiliation:
McGill University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Based on an impressionistic study of 16 young Canadians, mostly from Ontario, Clarke, Elms, and Youssef (1995) reported that the short front vowels of Canadian English are involved in a chain shift, the “Canadian Shift,” triggered by the merger of in low-back position, whereby is retracted to low-central position, and are lowered toward the low-front space vacated by . This article extends the study of the Canadian Shift to the English-speaking community of Montreal, Quebec, using acoustic rather than impressionistic analysis and a larger and more diverse sample. The new data motivate a revised view of the Shift, at least as it operates in Montreal, in which the three front vowels are retracted in a set of parallel shifts, rather than rotating in a chain shift.An earlier version of this paper was presented at NWAVE 32 (University of Pennsylvania, October 10, 2003). Thanks are due to members of the audience at that presentation, as well as to anonymous reviewers of the present version of the article, for helpful comments. In the preparation of the present version, the author is especially indebted to Anicka Fast and Erika Lawrance for research assistance and to Myrtis Fossey for assistance with statistical analysis. This research received financial support from three sources: the Research Grants Office of McGill University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (Grant #2003-NC-81927).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , July 2005 , pp. 133 - 154
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Avis, Walter S. (1954–1956). Speech differences along the Ontario–United States border. Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association 1:13–18, 1:14–19, and 2:41–59.Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles. (2000). Geolinguistic diffusion and the U.S.–Canada border. Language Variation and Change 12:1–24.Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles. (2004). Ethnic patterns in the phonetics of Montreal English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8(4):538–568.Google Scholar
Canada. Statistics Canada. (2001). Census, 2001. Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. 538–568. Also available on-line at www.statcan.ca.
Chambers, J. K. (1973). Canadian raising. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 18:113–135.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K. (1994). An introduction to dialect topography. English World-Wide 15:35–53.Google Scholar
Clarke, Sandra, Elms, Ford, & Youssef, Amani. (1995). The third dialect of English: Some Canadian evidence. Language Variation and Change 7:209–228.Google Scholar
D'Arcy, Alex. (2002). Caught in the act: Dialect change in St. John's English. Paper presented at NWAVE 31, Stanford University, October 12.
De Decker, Paul. (2001). Hangin' & retractin': Adolescent social practice and sound change in an Ontario small town. Paper presented at NWAVE 30, North Carolina State University, October 12.
De Decker, Paul, & Mackenzie, Sara. (1999). Slept through the ice: A Further look at lax vowel lowering in Canadian English. Paper presented at NWAVE 28, University of Toronto, October 16.
De Wolf, Gaelan Dodds. (1992). Social and regional factors in Canadian English. Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press.
Esling, John H., & Warkentyne, Henry J. (1993). Retracting of /æ/ in Vancouver English. In Sandra Clarke (ed.), Focus on Canada. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 229–246.
Gregg, R. J. (1957). Notes on the pronunciation of Canadian English as spoken in Vancouver, B.C. Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association 3:20–26.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Michol. (1998). Looking for a theng: The progress of lax vowel lowering. Paper presented at NWAVE 27, University of Georgia, October 2.
Hoffman, Michol. (1999). Really expansive: The progress of lax vowel lowering in a chain shift. Paper presented at NWAVE 28, University of Toronto, October 16.
Howe, Neil, & Strauss, Bill. (1993). 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? New York: Vintage Books.
Joos, Martin. (1942). A phonological dilemma in Canadian English. Language 18:141–144.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov, William. (1990). The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change. Language Variation and Change 2:205–254.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1991). The three dialects of English. In P. Eckert (ed.), New ways of analyzing sound change. New York: Academic Press. 1–44.
Labov, William. (1994). Principles of linguistic change. Vol. I: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon, & Boberg, Charles. (forthcoming). Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, phonology, and sound change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Labov, William, Yaeger, Malcah, & Steiner, Richard. (1972). A quantitative study of sound change in progress (Vol. 1). Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.
Lawrance, Erika. (2002). A shift in focus: A new, geolinguistic perspective on the Canadian Shift (and old questions revisited). Unpublished Master's paper, McGill University.
Martinet, André. (1955). Economie des changements phonétiques. Berne: Francke.
McCarthy, Corrine. (2004). Language Change in Pittsburgh: The Decline of /aw/-Monophthongization and the Canadian Shift. Poster presented at NWAVE 33, University of Michigan, October 1.
Moulton, William G. (1960). The short vowel systems of Northern Switzerland: A study in structural dialectology. Word 16:155–182.Google Scholar
Moulton, William G. (1962). Dialect geography and the concept of phonological space. Word 18:23–32.Google Scholar
Nearey, Terence M. (1977). Phonetic feature systems for vowels. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Scargill, M. H., & Warkentyne, Henry J. (1972). The Survey of Canadian English: A report. English Quarterly 5:47–104.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1974). Linguistic change and diffusion: Description and explanation in sociolinguistic dialect geography. Language in Society 3:215–246.Google Scholar