James Grama
Biographic Data
| ID | 136488 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Grama |
| GIVEN NAMES | James |
| FAMILY NAME | Grama |
| SIGNATURE | GRAMA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Duisburg-Essen |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3642-5812 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 47 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Variation in the Fataluku voiced coronal (j)
This paper represents the first variationist investigation of the voiced coronal phone (j) in Fataluku, a Papuan language of Timor-Leste. Here, we implement the Boruta algorithm at the front end of our analysis pipeline to quantify predictor importance, then use classification trees and mixed-effects regression to disentangle observed effects. Analysis suggests that word position is highly predictive of (j) realization, with glides more likely wo…
Post-educator relaxation in the U-shaped curve
Age-grading—a cornerstone of sociolinguistic theorizing—is hypothesized to follow a U-shaped pattern. Vernacular forms peak in adolescence, abate in middle age, and increase again in retirement, forming a vernacular tail. A complete understanding of age-grading has been hampered by a lack of empirical evidence across the entire adult trajectory and a relatively narrow understanding of speakers’ motivations to change. This paper presents data from…
Stability and change in (ing)
Work on variable (ing) has highlighted its long-term stability and shared conditioning across English varieties. Here, we ask whether similar stability and conditioning holds in Australian English over time and across ethnicity. The data come from sociolinguistic interviews with 204 Australians stratified according to age, gender, social class and ethnicity, drawn from the Sydney Speaks project. Analyses of 13,000 (ing) tokens reveal very low alv…
Comparing the performance of forced aligners used in sociophonetic research
Forced aligners have revolutionized sociophonetics, but while there are several forced aligners available, there are few systematic comparisons of their performance. Here, we consider four major forced aligners used in sociophonetics today: MAUS, FAVE, LaBB-CAT and MFA. Through comparisons with human coders, we find that both aligner and phonological context affect the quality of automated alignments of vowels extracted from English sociolinguist…
Ethnolectal and community change ov(er) time
Increased global migration to international urban centres has motivated a growing interest in ethnolects and the role migrant communities play in language variation and change. Here, we consider ethnolectal variation in real and apparent time, by examining the realization of word-final (er) (e.g. teacher, remember) in Australian English. We capitalize on sociolinguistic interview data collected by Barbara Horvath in Sydney in the 1970s as a bench…
Dimensions of Variance and Contrast in the Low Back Merger and the Low-Back-Merger Shift
Research Article| December 01 2019 2. Dimensions of Variance and Contrast in the Low Back Merger and the Low-Back-Merger Shift James Grama; James Grama JAMES GRAMA is a postdoctoral fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language at the Australian National University, where he works on the Sydney Speaks project. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research focuses on sociophonetics, language variation…
Introduction
1. introduction in 2012, a group of Western U.S. sociolinguists came together for an informal meeting at Stanford University to discuss current research on Western U.S. English dialects. The initiative was an attempt to find ways to align our research interests and encourage more work on the vastly understudied English dialects of this American region. As a result of this meeting, several participants began discussing how to synthesize our work o…
An acoustic analysis of the vowels of Hawai'i English
This paper provides an acoustic phonetic description of Hawai'i English vowels. The data comprise wordlist tokens produced by twenty-three speakers (twelve males and eleven females) and spontaneous speech tokens produced by ten of those speakers. Analysis of these vowel tokens shows that while there are similarities between Hawai'i English and other dialects, the particular combination of vowel realizations in Hawai'i English is unique to this di…
Chain Shifting and Centralization in California Vowels
This article documents the acoustic properties of the vowels of young adults from various regions of California, with special attention to a chain shift that lowers short front vowels /I/ (as in kit), /ε/ (as in dress), and /æ/ (as in trap). It also tracks the centralization of /ow/ (as in goat). Quantitative analysis of subjects' formants shows a consistently lower set of front vowels and a consistently centralized /ow/ relative to baseline comp…
Chain Shifting and Centralization in California Vowels
This article documents the acoustic properties of the vowels of young adults from various regions of California, with special attention to a chain shift that lowers short front vowels /I/ (as in kit), /ε/ (as in dress), and /æ/ (as in trap). It also tracks the centralization of /ow/ (as in goat). Quantitative analysis of subjects' formants shows a consistently lower set of front vowels and a consistently centralized /ow/ relative to baseline comp…
Ethnolectal and community change ov(er) time
Increased global migration to international urban centres has motivated a growing interest in ethnolects and the role migrant communities play in language variation and change. Here, we consider ethnolectal variation in real and apparent time, by examining the realization of word-final (er) (e.g. teacher, remember) in Australian English. We capitalize on sociolinguistic interview data collected by Barbara Horvath in Sydney in the 1970s as a bench…
Stability and change in (ing)
Work on variable (ing) has highlighted its long-term stability and shared conditioning across English varieties. Here, we ask whether similar stability and conditioning holds in Australian English over time and across ethnicity. The data come from sociolinguistic interviews with 204 Australians stratified according to age, gender, social class and ethnicity, drawn from the Sydney Speaks project. Analyses of 13,000 (ing) tokens reveal very low alv…
An acoustic analysis of the vowels of Hawai'i English
This paper provides an acoustic phonetic description of Hawai'i English vowels. The data comprise wordlist tokens produced by twenty-three speakers (twelve males and eleven females) and spontaneous speech tokens produced by ten of those speakers. Analysis of these vowel tokens shows that while there are similarities between Hawai'i English and other dialects, the particular combination of vowel realizations in Hawai'i English is unique to this di…
Post-educator relaxation in the U-shaped curve
Age-grading—a cornerstone of sociolinguistic theorizing—is hypothesized to follow a U-shaped pattern. Vernacular forms peak in adolescence, abate in middle age, and increase again in retirement, forming a vernacular tail. A complete understanding of age-grading has been hampered by a lack of empirical evidence across the entire adult trajectory and a relatively narrow understanding of speakers’ motivations to change. This paper presents data from…
Chain Shifting and Centralization in California Vowels
This article documents the acoustic properties of the vowels of young adults from various regions of California, with special attention to a chain shift that lowers short front vowels /I/ (as in kit), /ε/ (as in dress), and /æ/ (as in trap). It also tracks the centralization of /ow/ (as in goat). Quantitative analysis of subjects' formants shows a consistently lower set of front vowels and a consistently centralized /ow/ relative to baseline comp…
Introduction
1. introduction in 2012, a group of Western U.S. sociolinguists came together for an informal meeting at Stanford University to discuss current research on Western U.S. English dialects. The initiative was an attempt to find ways to align our research interests and encourage more work on the vastly understudied English dialects of this American region. As a result of this meeting, several participants began discussing how to synthesize our work o…
An acoustic analysis of the vowels of Hawai'i English
This paper provides an acoustic phonetic description of Hawai'i English vowels. The data comprise wordlist tokens produced by twenty-three speakers (twelve males and eleven females) and spontaneous speech tokens produced by ten of those speakers. Analysis of these vowel tokens shows that while there are similarities between Hawai'i English and other dialects, the particular combination of vowel realizations in Hawai'i English is unique to this di…
Dimensions of Variance and Contrast in the Low Back Merger and the Low-Back-Merger Shift
Research Article| December 01 2019 2. Dimensions of Variance and Contrast in the Low Back Merger and the Low-Back-Merger Shift James Grama; James Grama JAMES GRAMA is a postdoctoral fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language at the Australian National University, where he works on the Sydney Speaks project. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research focuses on sociophonetics, language variation…
Comparing the performance of forced aligners used in sociophonetic research
Forced aligners have revolutionized sociophonetics, but while there are several forced aligners available, there are few systematic comparisons of their performance. Here, we consider four major forced aligners used in sociophonetics today: MAUS, FAVE, LaBB-CAT and MFA. Through comparisons with human coders, we find that both aligner and phonological context affect the quality of automated alignments of vowels extracted from English sociolinguist…
Ethnolectal and community change ov(er) time
Increased global migration to international urban centres has motivated a growing interest in ethnolects and the role migrant communities play in language variation and change. Here, we consider ethnolectal variation in real and apparent time, by examining the realization of word-final (er) (e.g. teacher, remember) in Australian English. We capitalize on sociolinguistic interview data collected by Barbara Horvath in Sydney in the 1970s as a bench…
Variation in the Fataluku voiced coronal (j)
This paper represents the first variationist investigation of the voiced coronal phone (j) in Fataluku, a Papuan language of Timor-Leste. Here, we implement the Boruta algorithm at the front end of our analysis pipeline to quantify predictor importance, then use classification trees and mixed-effects regression to disentangle observed effects. Analysis suggests that word position is highly predictive of (j) realization, with glides more likely wo…
Post-educator relaxation in the U-shaped curve
Age-grading—a cornerstone of sociolinguistic theorizing—is hypothesized to follow a U-shaped pattern. Vernacular forms peak in adolescence, abate in middle age, and increase again in retirement, forming a vernacular tail. A complete understanding of age-grading has been hampered by a lack of empirical evidence across the entire adult trajectory and a relatively narrow understanding of speakers’ motivations to change. This paper presents data from…
Stability and change in (ing)
Work on variable (ing) has highlighted its long-term stability and shared conditioning across English varieties. Here, we ask whether similar stability and conditioning holds in Australian English over time and across ethnicity. The data come from sociolinguistic interviews with 204 Australians stratified according to age, gender, social class and ethnicity, drawn from the Sydney Speaks project. Analyses of 13,000 (ing) tokens reveal very low alv…
Linguistic Variation and Morphology (9 works) · Linguistics (8 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (8 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · History (5 works) · History (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Vowel (4 works)