LINGUIST List 33.3105
Tue Oct 11 2022
Diss: Sociolinguistics: Yoojin Kang: ''Diss Title: Acquisition of New Dialect Features by Seoul and Kyungsang Korean Speakers: Social and Attitudinal Factors Influencing Production''
Editor for this issue: Sarah Goldfinch <sgoldfinchlinguistlist.org>
Date: 13-Sep-2022
From: Yoojin Kang <yoojinkang22
gmail.com>
Subject: Diss Title: Acquisition of New Dialect Features by Seoul and Kyungsang Korean Speakers: Social and Attitudinal Factors Influencing Production
E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Georgetown University
Program: Department of linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2022
Author: Yoojin Kang
Dissertation Title: Acquisition of New Dialect Features by Seoul and Kyungsang Korean Speakers: Social and Attitudinal Factors Influencing Production
Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics
Dissertation Director:
Jennifer Nycz
Natalie Schilling
Seung-Eun Chang
Dissertation Abstract:
When speakers of different dialects interact, their specific dialect features may change over time. Recent work shows that the motivation for such changes can be due to many interrelated factors such as developmental, linguistic, and social effects. This dissertation expands this inquiry by examining second dialect acquisition by mobile speakers relocating between two regions, one urban and characterized by a prestigious dialect, and one rural, whose dialect is stigmatized. The participants in this study are 62 Korean speakers in two field sites: Seoul city and North Kyungsang province in South Korea. This dissertation explores how mobile adult speakers (i.e., speakers of North Kyungsang Korean who have moved to the Seoul region and speakers of Seoul Korean who have moved to the North Kyungsang region) acquire new dialect features. The study is one of the largest second dialect acquisition studies with 62 mobile adult speakers stratified according to birth region, gender, and length of residence in a new area to investigate how these social factors affect the acquisition of new dialect features.
Four linguistic variables were analyzed in the speech of each speaker: /ɯ/ and /ʌ/ variation, /wɑ/ variation, word-initial stop variation, and use of tones. The study draws its data from four different tasks to elicit different styles of speech: Conversational interview, reading passage, wordlist, and minimal pairs. After completing these four tasks, I explained the four features of dialect which differ between Seoul Korean and North Kyungsang Korean, which were examined in this study. The participants were asked to identify any features that they had already known as the features of dialect which differ between Seoul Korean and North Kyungsang Korean and rank those features in order of the typical features of the D2. Finally, each speaker was asked to complete a questionnaire to examine the effect of attitudes towards the first dialect and second dialect and toward the first dialect and second dialect regions on dialect acquisition.
Several findings emerge from this dissertation. Most of the speakers in both mobile groups produce the Seoul Korean-like distinction between /ɯ/ and /ʌ/, Seoul-like /wɑ/ diphthongization and do not show the North Kyungsang Korean-like word-initial tensification and North Kyungsang Korean tones. I argue that this overall result that the vast majority of mobile speakers produce the Seoul Korean features is related to both linguistic and extralinguistic factors: Complexity of linguistic features, salience of features, speakers’ pre-existing phonetic repertoire, perception of tone contrasts, high instrumental motivation and linguistic insecurity, and speaker identity.
Page Updated: 11-Oct-2022