Effects of Consonantal Context on the Pronunciation of /æ/ 77- Results
3.1 Relative positions of /æ/ and /͑/
As illustrated in Figure 3.1, /æ/ is acoustically further front and higher than
/͑/ in the most advanced NCS speakers, with /æ/ ultimately approaching high
front vowel territory in some speakers. This pattern is much different from
what has been found in south Texas. As documented by Thomas (2001), /͑/ is
close to [e] with respect to F1 and F2 values in the English of Mexican Ameri-
cans in south Texas. Also, the vowel /æ/ is usually well below and behind /͑/
in these Texas speakers, although /æ/ in this speech community does tend
to be somewhat higher in relation to the total vowel space than /æ/ in the
speech of Texas Anglos. As one indicator of the degree to which a speaker
had accommodated to the NCS, therefore, the relative positions of the mean
unnormalized F1 and F2 values for tokens of /æ/ and /͑/ were calculated for
each individual separately and are shown in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1 Relative Positions of /æ/ and /͑/ in Native Speakers of Michigan EnglishPseudonymF1(norm) of
/æ/ (in Hertz)/æ/ relative to /͑/ (based
on F1/F2 means) Sex AgeCollege
Degree SES
Judith 765 fronted and raised /æ/ F 21 No W
Jose 696 fronted and raised /æ/ M 35 Yes M
Lucy 729 fronted /æ/ F 14 N/A* M
Estela 703 fronted /æ/ F 17 N/A* W
Emelia 694 fronted /æ/ F 20 No W
Solana 731 fronted /æ/ F 22 Yes M
Ralph 662 fronted /æ/ M 41 No M
Edmund 680 fronted /æ/ M 45 Yes MAndy (^722) /æ/ = /͑/ M14 N/A W
Rodolfo (^702) /æ/ = /͑/ M27 No W
Melito (^677) /æ/ = /͑/ M29 No W
Martin (^684) /æ/ = /͑/ M48 No M
Walter 743 backed /æ/ M 71 No W
Melinda (^798) /æ/ below /͑/ F16 N/A M
RonaldB (^657) /æ/ below /͑/ M16 N/A M
Jesse (^668) /æ/ below /͑/ M28 No W
Note: indicates that the speaker was too young to be in college at the time of the interview.