Advances in Sociophonetics

Chapter 1. The sociophonetic orientation of the language learner 27

second formant. Female gender is positive at an amount equivalent to a 25 year dif-
ference in age at < .01 probability. Membership in the upper working class (com-
pared to the residual group, the lower working class) is a somewhat larger effect,
at < .05 probability level. Residence in the oldest settled working class neighbor-
hood (“Wicket St.” in Kensington) contributes even more, again < .01. But Jewish
ethnicity is not a significant effect, nor is Italian, Irish, WASP or German. Finally,
I entered Generational status, to ensure comparison with the New York City data:
this too fails to show a significant effect. In other words, the use of a second lan-
guage or dialect has no linguistic consequence for those who follow.

Table 3. Stepwise regression output for fronting of checked /ey/ in the Philadelphia
Neighborhood Study [N = 112] as registered by second formant measurements.

Variable Coefficient Probability

Age (* 25 yrs) −85 ≤ 0.0001
Female 83 0.008
Upper working class 108 0.026
Wicket St. neighborhood 145 0.004
Jewish −169 n.s.
Italian 38 n.s.
Irish −2 n.s.
Wa s p −91 n.s.
German −98 n.s.
Generational status 9 n.s.

Second formant

First formant

2600

400

iyC

iyF

i

uwF uwC

u oy

oh

ohr

eyF owF owC

e

aw

æhN eyC

æ

ay0 Û

ahr

P < .10

P < .05

P < .01

P < .001

o

ay

500

600

700

800

900

250024002300220021002000190018001700160015001400130012001100 1000 900

Figure 7. Mean values of vowels for the Philadelphia Neighborhood Study (N = 116).
Arrows represent age coefficients in stepwise regression. Head of arrow: expected value
for speakers 25 years younger than the mean; tail or arrow expected value for speakers 25
years older than the mean.