Effects of Consonantal Context on the Pronunciation of /æ/ 75speakers, /æ/ is realized in a high front position in all phonetic environ-
ments, nearing [Ԍ] in its most extreme form—a position referred to as fronted
and raised in the vowel space because F2 is higher than older attested posi-
tions for this vowels and F1 is lower. In the second step, /ľ/ moves forward
towards [æ]. In the third step, /ɬ/ centralizes and fronts in the vowel space,
and is ultimately produced as [ľ]. The other movements seen in Figure 3.1
appear to follow these ¿ rst three in speakers native to shifted areas. Evans,
Ito, Jones and Preston (2000) found the NCS to be well advanced among
younger Anglos in Lansing, as would be expected from a sociolinguistic
perspective, given its status as a capitol city and its proximity to several
large urban centers.
In the year 2000, according to US Census data, Latinos made up 10% of
Lansing’s total population of 120,000, with people of Mexican heritage com-
prising the majority of this group at nearly 7%. Migrants of Mexican heritage
began settling in the Lansing area in substantial numbers during World War
II, when workers were needed in the factories, and the population has been
growing steadily since then—unlike the Anglo population which, inciden-
tally, is decreasing in number. Fir m ties to Texas are still maintained by many,
and a strong sense of solidarity is apparent in this close-knit community; but
Mexican Americans are now well integrated throughout the Lansing area,
and many families have been in Michigan for one, two or even three genera-
tions. Several thousand undocumented migrants continue to come to Lansing
each summer, and the group mobility and the constant inÀ ux of people help to
keep both Texas English and Spanish alive here—although many second and
third generation residents are monolingual.
2.2 Participants
This study focuses on 16 people chosen from a total group of 32 Mexican
American residents of Lansing who were participants in a larger study. The
initial stage of the larger project was to compare average F1 and F2 of the
vowels / ͑ľɬ/ from wordlist data across the social factors of sex, age,
socioeconomic status and generation of residence in Michigan. Results of the
larger study revealed that the dialect spoken by Mexican Americans in Lan-
sing is clearly inÀ uenced by the NCS, but it is not as advanced in this group
as in Anglos in the area, and shows a different order of accommodation than
has been observed through geographic spread of the shift. There is signi¿ cant
variation between men and women, with women showing more NCS-like
characteristics than men for every variable, but there is very little signi¿ cant