Musical genres exhibit distinct sociophonetic targets

An analysis of Quebec French

Bibliographic Data

ID22159393
AuthorsKaitlyn Owens (0009-0003-8121-1896, Indiana University Bloomington, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume8
Issue1
Pages5490
Publication date2023-04-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueProceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2473-8689 • E-ISSN: 2473-8689
PublisherLinguistic Society of America (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5490
OpenAlexW4367186916
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited13

Genres such as indie (Beal 2009) and hip-hop (Eberhardt & Freeman 2015) feature dialectal traits in English, but whether genres form targets distinct from speech remains unclear. We examine genre effects on phonetic variation in Quebec French music by probing the role of genres (pop, country, alternative, and indie) on laxing and diphthongization, processes characteristic of Quebec French (Walker 1984). Stigma facing formal varieties of Quebec French has vanished within dialect (Kircher 2012), yet remains for processes that vary regionally or socioeconomically (Côté 2012; Côté & Lancien, 2019). Whereas laxing is categorical and non-stigmatized (Côté 2012; Paradis & Dolbec, 1998), diphthongization is variable and stigmatized (Côté 2012). We use a novel corpus of ten Québécois singers who released multiple albums from 2011-2021 (29 albums; 326 songs). We find the emergence of genre-specific linguistic norms distinct from speech and argue that genres in music parallel sociolects

Art · Indie film · Linguistics · Literature · Musical · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research

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