Ellen Lund and Dr. David Bowie, Linguistics

The study of dialect formation typically consists of examining changes within an already established dialect region, such as those caused by large-scale immigration or an extension of a previously existing dialect region. Utah English, on the other hand, was formed by native English speakers settling outside existing dialect regions. While this type of dialect formation has occurred before, usually only written records (if any) exist to document changes. The study of Utah English formation is a rare opportunity, because audio recordings of these dialect speakers were made.

Despite this, surprisingly little research has been done on Utah English. In fact, only six published studies exist on specific aspects of this variety. The purpose of the Early Utah English Project is to trace the development of Utah English as a new dialect by studying examples of first- and second-generation Utah-born English speakers. This large project is divided up into smaller projects, with each one focusing on the progression of a certain feature of Utah English from the variety’s inception.

One phenomenon very stereotypical of Utah English that I was particularly interested in tracing was the laxing of vowels before the letter l. Laxing means that the sound is pronounced lower in the mouth with a slight change in the shape of the tongue. Thus the long a sound would lax to a short e, changing the phrase “There’s a sale at the store” to “There’s a sell at the store.” Also common is the laxing of the long e sound to a short i, changing the pronunciation of “Geneva Steel” to “Geneva Still.” Laxing has emerged independently in several North American dialects and although it is an important characteristic of Utah English, only one published study deals with front-vowel laxing in Utah English.

The speech of the first-and second-generation Utah English speakers that I studied came from radio broadcasts of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church began broadcasting its semi-annual general conference in the 1920s, and my faculty mentor supplied me with tapes of these conferences starting in the late 1930s. From these tapes came 27 first- and second-generation Utah English speakers born between the years 1847 and 1896.

My preliminary work included obtaining biographical information on each speaker, including birth date and birthplace to determine which speakers qualify as subjects for this study. The bulk of the research, however, consisted of listening to these tapes and noting all instances of front vowels before l and comparing their actual pronunciation with the expected pronunciation. I also noted other surrounding characteristics such as preceding sounds, syllable breaks, and syntax. After I gathered this data, I used a computer program, Goldvarb 2001, to analyze the results.

My original hypothesis as I began recording data from the tapes was that I would find the beginnings of laxing in the speech of these first- and second-generation Utah English speakers. Essentially, I was expecting fewer occurrences of the same phenomenon than occur today, indicating that occurrences of this feature grew gradually starting from the first English-speaking settlements in Utah until the present day. After gathering 1498 tokens from these tapes and loading them into Goldvarb, some laxing did emerge. Among words that only had one possible pronunciation, a long e, a mere 2% of them were actually pronounced with a short i. However, with words that had a long e as the preferred pronunciation and short i as an alternative, the percentage of laxed vowels rose to 19%.

Surprisingly though, I also found the reverse process occurring simultaneously. Rather than vowels always laxing before l, they were also tensing. The process of tensing causes the vowel to be pronounced slightly higher in the mouth. In this case, the short i becomes a long e: “building” tenses to “beelding” and “children” tenses to “cheeldren.” This phenomenon occurred with virtually the same frequency as laxing of the long e. Of the words that could only be pronounced with a short i, a surprising 20% showed tensing and were actually pronounced with a long e sound.

This phenomenon of simultaneous laxing and tensing did not extend to the other vowel tracked in this project: that of the long a laxing to a short e or vice versa. In fact this vowel showed very little variation. Ninety-eight percent of the words containing a long a sound were actually pronounced that way. Only 1% were pronounced with a long e and 1% with a short e. This almost complete lack of nonstandard pronunciation of the long a indicates that the laxing (and, for that matter, the tensing) of this vowel was not a feature of Utah English from its beginnings.

Although—perhaps even because— my expected results differed from my actual results, my research provides useful information to future research projects and contributes to the findings of the Early Utah English Project. I found simultaneous laxing and tensing of some vowels before l. Further, I found that laxing of the long a to a short e was not present in Utah English when it was settled. This means that this phenomenon either developed gradually in Utah English or was introduced into the variety by later settlers. Future studies should be conducted starting with third- and fourth-generation Utah English speakers to pinpoint when laxing of the long a began to emerge. Then possible causes, such as immigration or social pressures from elsewhere, might be identified. Other studies could focus on whether vowel tensing increased simultaneously with laxing from the first English-speaking settlers to the present and to what extent both these features exist currently in Utah English, though only one is generally recognized.