Chapter 9
Perceptions of /a/ fronting Across
Two Michigan Dialects
Bartáomiej Plichta, University of Minnesota Twin Cities and
Brad Rakerd, Michigan State University
- Ishpeming and Detroit
It would be dif¿ cult to ¿ nd t wo M ich ig a n cit ie s mor e d i f fe r e nt t h a n I sh p e m i ng,
in the Upper Peninsula, and Detroit, in Southeastern Lower Michigan (Figure
9.1). Ishpeming is a working-class town, known for iron-mining activities,
lumbering, marble quarrying, and winter sports. Its population is mostly of
Scandinavian origin. Detroit, on the other hand, is a large metropolitan area
and is known for being a center of the American automotive industry. Detroit
is a very dynamic, ethnically and linguistically diverse city.
The most recent US Census (2000) data shows population density to be
among the highest in Michigan in the Metropolitan Detroit area and among
the lowest around Ishpeming. The Detroit suburbs are among the more afÀ u-
ent areas in Michigan. The Ishpeming area, on the other hand, ranks as one of
the poorest. Finally, fewer than 70% of the inhabitants of the Detroit area were
born in Michigan, as compared to over 90% in Ishpeming.
These demographics make the urban and suburban areas of Southeastern
Lower Michigan particularly prone to adopting and spreading new language
norms (Labov 2001), while the more conservative, older populations of the
Upper Peninsula would not be expected to participate in major sound change
phenomena at nearly the same pace. It is, therefore, not surprising that the
dialects of English spoken by the upwardly-mobile, white members of the
dynamic and diverse speech communities of Metropolitan Detroit have been
found to exhibit some of the most advanced stages of the Northern Cities
Chain Shift (NCCS), while the dialects of English spoken in the Upper Penin-
sula rarely shows elements of NCCS (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006). Instead,
the latter are under some Canadian inÀ uence.
Figure 9.2 shows the vowel systems of two young, white female talk-
ers from the Detroit area. For both, NCCS is well advanced, with multiple