A Reader in Sociophonetics

The Perception of Northern Cities Shifted Vowels by Local Speakers 243

southeastern and southwestern Michigan, a fact reÀ ected in the NCS shift of
their vowels. There were twenty undergraduate student listeners from West-
ern Michigan University. None were recruited from the talker population,
but all were at least minimally trained in phonetics and were predominantly
from the same region. Each hearer heard each vowel of the twelve tested once

Figure 10.2 Compa r ison of Peterson a nd Ba r ney w it h Hillenbra nd , et al. (1995: 3103,
women only)

Table 10.1 Percent Correct (for NCS Vowel Tokens Only) in Three Single-Word

Comprehension Studies

Vowel

% Correct

Peterson & Barney 1952 Hillenbrand et al, 1995

ܼ 92.9 98.8

ܭ 87.7 95.1

æ96.594.1

ܤ 87.0 92.3

ܧ 92.8 82.0

ݞ 92.2 90.8