Charles Boberg

It would be churlish to criticize this too hard--and I'm giving it four stars, so that's obviously not my intention. But there is some truth to the observation offered by Gerard Van Herk, sociolinguistics dude (um, would that be "sociolinguist", Martin?) at Memorial University of Newfoundland and former sweet rocker (aside: as a former guitarist in a hardcore band, what would Van Herk make of a description that could be as easily applied to Kenny Loggins? The most interesting thing about music in the present day is the way our consumption of it has changed, and Girl Talk sure seems like a fitting omega to the alpha of Little Richard or whatevs), I-I-I say, there's some truth to Van Herk's observation at dinner last night (the lamb shank was fit for Dionysus himself) that if his fourteen-year-old son could come out of a talk going "didn't they notice that all the old words sound one way and all the new words sound the other way?" then perhaps the findings aren't killer interesting?


But Boberg does acknowledge that, in a way that splits the difference between phonotactic and historical/socio concerns--by coding DATE and language of ORIGIN as variables alongside stress and ollowing environment and so on. And ultimately it's not his project, and this diss is do eminently short (at 146 pages) and clear that you wouldn't want him to move in too many new directions (certainly not as a Master's student who is grinding through this as thesis prep and has decided to make (a) a relatively lesser element of the project than he was initially intending). It's a great look at nativization that presents the basic English situation--naturalization with the front vowel due to prosodic constraints (long-short vowel system)in Britain, vs. back-vowel naturalization in the US due to a net of phonetic proximity instincts and resultant prestige judgments (no surprise that the most proximal vowel should sound the most "correct")in the US. He identifies the strong Canadian proclivity for the front vowel, and therefore gives me my project. And he provides a wealth of best-practicesy methodological knowledge by the by, and even a word list. No, you can't hate on Boberg.… (mehr)