Talk:New York City English/Archive 4

Trump and NYC English

I mostly hear NYC English when I hear Trump talk, altho I am not a linguistics expert. Variations may be due to his elite social context and elite private school and high-status university upbringing.Bellagio99 (talk) 20:49, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The NYCE features of his accent are highly inconsistent, so he shouldn't be listed as a representative speaker of the accent. (In no way am I saying that his vocal style is not unique.) His GOAT vowel is often centralized, his THOUGHT vowel often lowered, and he even seems to have certain features all of his own (he pronounces "industry" with the second syllable stressed or perhaps uses the STRUT vowel in that word, he voices some voiceless consonants, etc.) In fact, see the comments about him under the cot-caught merger bullet. Wolfdog (talk) 21:46, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Features like the centralization of the "goat vowel," just like the absence or presence of dental fricatives, the degree to which the "thought" vowel is raised, all of these features vary based on class and ethnicity. Idiosyncrasies, like his pronunciation of "industry," none of this makes the case that he isn't a clear speaker of NYC English. He's a native born New Yorker, hew grew up in New York City, and he built his business in New York City.--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Wolfdog: Can we at least be consistent? If he is not an example of New York City English, then should the information about him be removed in the bullet "Variability based on social register"? Either way, I leave that call up to you.LakeKayak (talk) 18:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@LakeKayak: I'm all for consistency. How about I leave it up to you? I neither added that Trump material nor read the source it cites. If it says nothing about NYCE or seems uncredible, delete it.Wolfdog (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

He's absolutely an example of NYCE. Of course he has features that may be idiosyncratic, but he's got many NYCE features and is recognizably a New Yorker. With all due respect to Wolfdog, I think there is a problem with the concept of 'representative speaker.' There is just too much diversity in the dialect region. Here's an article I wrote. [[1]] There have been other articles based on that.

The problem is that these sites are political interviews. Therefore, it is somebody analysis of how Trump speaks. Anyway, this seems to be original research and I have decided to remove it.LakeKayak (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

@Bellagio99: I have one problem with the claim that variations result from his elite background. According to Wolfdog, his goat vowel is often centralized. This alone refutes (but not disproves) the idea of variations resulting from an elite background. This feature is found neither in New York City English nor in General American. This however is my take on it.LakeKayak (talk) 15:47, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I would absolutely defer to linguist Michael Newman (self-identified User:Mnewmanqc) on the issue. Mnewmanqc, by "representative speaker," I just meant a speaker who fairly consistently exhibits all of the major features of the dialect. I realize that this is a relative term and admit that my own impression of Trump is not based on a scientific analysis. Trump has certain features that nail him down as being from the NYC, yes, but he still doesn't speak with all the major or defining features of NYCE in a consistent way, while Bernie Sanders (for example) certainly does. Do you see what I mean? Wolfdog (talk) 20:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mnewmanqc: Could you please clarify with specific examples from Trump's speech in your own words that identify him as a speaker of NYCE? I am only an amateur, and I don't know much about Trump's speech at all.LakeKayak (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mnewmanqc: I think your article describes New York City English based off attitude than phonological features. I would rather have an article discussing phonological features that Trump uses to determine whether or not his accent resembles a New Yorker.LakeKayak (talk) 03:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I think I misread your comment the first time, and I didn't realize that you wrote the article.LakeKayak (talk) 03:40, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. The problem is that few people look at how an individual speaks. The section on notable people is mainly from media reports. I never participate in that section mnewmanqc (talk) 04:02, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mnewmanqc: I agree that this is a problem; however, for the sake of an article on dialect (rather than idiolect), the notable-people sections are one of the few ways a general, nonexpert audience can wrap their heads around such topics; it acts as a kind of anchor into otherwise very technically-written articles. "New York City English? Oh, I see... like the speech qualities of Jerry Seinfeld or Groucho Marx!" Also, it allows people to search up examples of real speakers and learn about the dialect by then listening to audio samples. This promotes learning outside the confines of mere text. This is why I and others push for those notable-people sections, despite their flaws from your strict academic POV. I think there's a real value to them. Hope that makes sense. Wolfdog (talk) 02:30, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I just cited another two sources which attest to the fact that Donald Trump is a speaker of NYC English, including quotes from linguists noting his "Queens Accent." Being someone from South Florida who grew up around New Yorkers, half of my family being New Yorkers, I'm flabbergasted that this is even a debate. Another thing, if we were to remove anyone from that list that doesn't display all the features of NYCE, perfectly and consistently, at least sixty percent of that list would have to be deleted.--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rsac3: What's a Queens accent? I know what is the stereotypical Staten Island or Brooklyn accent. But I have no idea what the stereotype is for Queens or if there even is one. Could you please clarify?LakeKayak (talk) 04:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

@LakeKayak: I haven't come across any data regarding differences borough-wise, but I would find that interesting. I'm sure the differences ethnic-wise, Italian, German, Jewish, are much starker, and an Italian-American New Yorker in Staten Island would sound more similar to an Italian-American Long Islander than Italians and Jews would within the same borough. It certainly comes down to the tones and timbre of the original languages trickling down to the English spoken by their descendants, just like the Norwegian/Swedish sing-song Minnesota accent, or the Miami accent I hear down here in South Florida from native-born Hispanic Americans, for whom a light Spanish intonation and melody is present in their day to day English. The Miami accent is very under-recognized and under-appreciated by linguists. The most noticeable features are a very hard pronunciation of "L", directly from Spanish, and in the strongest varieties, the lack of short-a tensing before nasal stops. The "hard L" I notice even among college-educated speakers. --Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 04:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rsac3:To my knowledge, there aren't any known variations based on the boroughs, either. (There are only stereotypes.) However, I am only "confused" by what you mean by "Queens accent." Could you clarify? Thank you.LakeKayak (talk) 20:22, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

No one has ever produced (as far as I'm aware) any evidence for or against borough accents. We should have some relatively soon since Kara Becker of Reed College has been working on it. Still the consensus among variationist sociolinguists is that there is unlikely to be any geographically based differences. That said, once Channel 11 interviewed me and the interviewer asked repeatedly about whether Bernie had a Brooklyn accent and Donald a Queens one. When I didn't say that was the case, she went ahead and said I did. So we need to be very careful about interviews with linguists in the media.mnewmanqc (talk) 03:14, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3sac3: I think there should be a point made on social variation. I think we all can agree that there are feature that vary based on social class. However, there is a problem with your claim on centralizing of goat also known as "fronted /oʊ/". The /oʊ/ is typically fronted in the South and the Midland areas. It may be prestigious in British English. However, to my knowledge, in American English, this feature is highly stigmatized. Therefore, in theory, somebody higher on the social class would be less likely to front their /oʊ/.

As for ethnicity, I think I can focus particularly on speakers from English is their second language. When first learning a new language, a speaker usually will retain some features from the native language into the new language. The closest vowel in many foreign languages, or at least Spanish and Italian, to the English /oʊ/ is [oː]. Therefore, if they initially have a alteration of the /oʊ/, the vowel would be most likely monophthongized to [oː]. As for ethno-cultural accents, as you said, it "comes down to the tones and timbre of the original languages trickling down to the English spoken by their descendants." Therefore, the fronted /oʊ/ is likely to occur in an ethno-centric dialect. In summary, I don't think that social or ethnic differences seem to justify Trump's use of the fronted /oʊ/.

I made this comment.LakeKayak (talk) 14:49, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure whom I'm replying to as there's no signature, but I'm not sure where you got the notion that a fronted "o" is highly stigmatized from. Midland American English, which features a fronted "o", is described by Labov as becoming the "default" for a general American system. Southern American English can have highly fronted o's, which is one of the "stigmatized" features, but it's fronted to a much greater degree than in other varieties of American English. The back, conservative "o" in fact, is often made fun of, the movie Fargo for example which poked fun at the Minnesota accent, or the stereotypical Italian New York/Jersey Shore accent.

Also, I'm not sure what basis you have for the claim that a fronted "o" is more likely to occur in an ethno-centric accent. The Hispanic Miami accent and Italian New York accent have back o's, as these are closer phonetically to the fully rounded, back o's found in Italian and Spanish. The back o is simply diphthongized.--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 01:01, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rasc3: I meant to say that the fronted /oʊ/ is less likely to occur in an ethno-centric accent.

I don't think the conservative /oʊ/ is really made fun of. And I wouldn't use the show "The Jersey Shore" as an example.

As for the following claim:

"Midland American English, which features a fronted "o", is described by Labov as becoming the "default" for a general American system."

I am curious where Labov said that.LakeKayak (talk) 15:01, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@LakeKayak: in the Atlas of North American English (page 135), Labov et al. say: "Thus the Midland participates in the general fronting of /ow/ (and /aw/) and in the ongoing low back merger, without involvement in the active chain shifts of Maps 11.1 to 11.8. Appendix 11.1 figures for homogeneity (.66) and consistency (.44) are quite low compared to the isoglosses reviewed previously, and leakage is high(.16). There is reason to believe that the Midland is becoming the default system of North American English." Sadly, the writing immediately shifts elsewhere and the idea is never fully fleshed-out. Wolfdog (talk) 15:09, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

It seems that the reinstation of "Donald Trump" as a notable speaker contained complete original research. There may be a misuse of the term "New York accent" to describe the stereotypical attitude when speaking. However, I would personally want a source based off phonological features more than attitude. Therefore, I have decided to redo Wolfdog's edit and remove "Trump" again.LakeKayak (talk) 02:38, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

"Original research" is not defined by Wikipedia as valid sources quoting actual professors and experts on a given field making a case contrary to your own. You also don't get to unilaterally dictate and assume which sources are confusing "New York Accent," with a New York attitude, or even make the claim that even one source is doing such thing. Such a claim is completely baseless.

Moreover, to require scientific breakdown of phonological features for inclusion on the list of speakers is nuts. Do we need a source based off of phonological features for Bugs Bunny? According to you we need him removed. Wide cultural recognition and perception doesn't suffice.--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 04:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Speak of the devil, I was going to mention Bugs Bunny myself. Bugs exhibits features like coil–curl merger and non-rhoticity. This can be seen his catch phrases:

• "I knew I should have taken that left toyn at Albuquoyque."
• "Ain't I a stinkeh"?

You say that my claim of the confusion of a "New York accent" with attitude is baseless, and that you wish to have a concensus of each source. Let's start with Trump, Bernie Sanders, and the Political Appeal of a New Yawk Accent. The source says that "Americans have come to associate New Yorkers, and so New York accents, with saying what you mean, intense emotional talk, and not worrying too much about whom you offend." This is the stereotypical attitude of the New York accent. (In order to be respectful, it should be mentioned that this stereotype is typically exaggerated.) Also, can anybody vouch that this is a reliable source?

Finally, Wolfdog listed inconsistencies in Trump's speech, and you refuted them by saying they were all based on social class or ethnicity, one of which being a fronted /oʊ/. My sole point was that the fronting of /oʊ/ is a feature not based on either criterion and that you should be careful about making a claim like that. That's all I was trying to say.LakeKayak (talk) 22:03, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

@LakeKayak: I don't have data to back it up, but having the unfronted, conservative "o" isn't universal. I've noticed a more fronted "o" in Jewish NYCE speakers, see Judge Judy, Barbara Walters, Jerry Seinfeld, while the conservative, backed "o" sounds more Italian, Robert De Niro, Rudy Giuliani. This is just a personal observation.

As for the NY Mag article, why is this any less legitimate than any other source used to identify speakers of an accent? Is perception not sufficient? Are phonological studies required of each individual speaker in order to include them in the list?--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 01:01, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Simply, I never heard of it before, and I was asking anybody really if it was a blog or not. I wasn't sure for myself. As for other sources that may be used to identify speakers as New York accents, based off Mnewmanqc's word, it seems a lot of them are imperfect.

My issue is not the need for a formal study. If a speaker exhibits noticeable features to the layman's ear like non-rhoticity, then an article should mention those noticeable features.LakeKayak (talk) 02:58, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

LakeKayak (talk) 02:58, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there's any real basis for removing Trump from the list. He's been as documented as a speaker of NYCE as any of the others listed, and probably more than most. The presence of a feature like GOAT fronting or not does not take away the presence of a number of NYCE features, such as voicing of /hj/ in words like human or huge, THOUGHT raising, and variable rhoticity. As Wolfdog has said, the purpose of the notable speakers section is to provide examples of the features described in the more technical sections. He is a clearly a NYCE speaker. mnewmanqc (talk) 04:08, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

So, the more I now listen to Trump in clips, the more I feel the goat vowel is the only pretty consistently non-NYCE feature in his speech. I'd thought I'd heard several other non-NYCE features in the past, but I can't seem to find them at this time. Also, I already commented that I'd defer to Mnewmanqc's knowledge on the subject. That said, here are some other observations:

• At first, I was wary that LakeKayak referred to cited sources as "original research", however, in looking through the articles, I now see what some of LakeKayak's valid concerns are. Just because an article mentions an idea one time doesn't mean it makes a great case for that idea being true. (However, I don't think they all need to be deleted either.) Below, I make a comment on each of the cited articles.
• Mrv3rsac3, I agree that "to require scientific breakdown of phonological features for inclusion on the list" is unnecessary... for most speakers. However, it is certainly not "nuts", as you say, in the event that there is dispute among editors. When editors find an inclusion to be contentious, further and more specific evidence is often required to resolve the dispute. This is completely normal WP routine. These need not be just phonological features though; lexical or syntactic features could also help bolster one side or the other in our case.
• OK, so here is what I see from each cited article:
  • "New South Carolina Poll" is certainly a terribly edited article, where a name is spelled both "Huffmon" and "Hoffman"; it once quotes a non-linguist who mentions Trump's NY accent. Otherwise, his accent is unmentioned and unelaborated. This seems unimpressive.
  • "Donald Trump's Comedy Central roasters" once states that Trump has a NY accent. I have no idea of the writer's credentials.
  • "Donald Trump's Accent" is all about perceptions and associations made to Trump's accent. No actually measurable features are mentioned. Yet there is one exception to this: the "yuge" feature.
  • "Every C-Span Shot of Donald Trump" says literally nothing about any accent as far as I can see. It should be immediately deleted.
  • "Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders" presents a few actual features of NY English (mostly in references to Bernie Sanders), including the "yuge" feature.
• Also, LakeKayak, where did you get the idea that goat fronting is highly stigmatized? That idea seems not only unlikely, but possibly the opposite is even true for some Americans.

Thanks, everyone for having this respectful conversation. Wolfdog (talk) 14:53, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@Wolfdog: If it's the criterion for an article that specific phonological features are described, and simple recognition of the speaker as an NYCE speaker isn't enough, we would have many, many articles to remove on this page, if not the overwhelming majority. The New York accent is the American "accent," as in the deviant from "General American," that is the most conspicuous and easily recognized, with the most media and film exposure, of any accents other than perhaps Southern American English. As an American, someone from the New York/North New Jersey area can be picked out right away. You're setting the bar unreasonably high by asking for the source to acknowledge a "raised 'thought' vowel," or a "consistent short-a split," in order for it to be a valid source to attest to the fact that a speaker is of a particular accent.

Regarding your removal of my Washington Post article, again quoting linguists and professors, all who confirm he has a New York accent, again, how many sources are we going to have to eliminate, and how many people on that list are we going to have to remove, if you apply the same standard to all those listed, all these sources?

Just from personal observation, as has already been pointed out in this talk page, Trump has the raised "thought" vowel, he irregularly demonstrates the short-a split, he uses /ɑ/ for the "horrible/majority" class words, and drops the "h" before the /j/, as in "huge" and "human." In addition, I observed in the third debate how he used the VERY New York terminology, "on line," as opposed to "in line," when he was describing queues for legal immigrants in the third debate.--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 03:24, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rsac3: I think we've arrived at the same basic position at this point. We're keeping Trump on the page. However, as I've said already, in the event that there is dispute among editors, it's completely justified to do away with the less convincing evidence and keep the more convincing, stronger evidence, which is more verifiable and so more likely to stand the test of time and be immune to editors' doubts and criticisms. This is general WP protocol: avoid a ton of so-so citations when you can have a small number of stronger citations. An article that mentions even one measurable feature of an accent is more convincing than an article that doesn't, and also certainly more convincing than an article that merely relies on mentioning people's flighty impressions or perceptions. That's all that I mean here. Wolfdog (talk) 09:40, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@Wolfdog: It may be original research that the fronted /oʊ/ is highly stigmatized. When I hear the fronted /oʊ/, I find the sound to be rather annoying. The sound sounds to be drawn out, like a drawl, and drawls can be perceived as annoying. (The Southern drawl for instance is highly stigmatized).LakeKayak (talk) 15:13, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rsac3: You asked about whether the fronted /oʊ/ occurred for Jewish speakers of New York English. I did some research. To answer your question, in Labov's book "Stratification of New York City English", he does record differences between ethnicities, including Italian and Jewish. However, he does not address the fronting of /oʊ/ (in his notation /ow/) as such a variable feature. Therefore, it probably doesn't happen.LakeKayak (talk) 17:39, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

@LakeKayak: Like I told you, I have no research to back my claim up. It was an observation on my part. I encourage you though to juxtapose Italian and Jewish NYCE speakers, and the /oʊ/ and /u/ are more fronted in Jewish speakers. Listen to clips of Judge Judy, Fran Drescher, or the Seinfeld cast.--Mrv3rsac3 (talk) 03:24, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rsac3: From what you said, I was under the impression that you weren't sure either way. So, I only was saying that I found some potential evidence to suggest that Jewish speakers might not be more prone to fronting their /oʊ/'s. However, nothing is set in stone. In a sense, we are like scientists, going back and forth with information in attempts to come to a conclusion. That's all.LakeKayak (talk) 21:07, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@Mrv3rsac3:-"What's the problem with the Washington Post"- I apologize for making the claim "original research". It seems that I have mistaken "original research" (a Wikipedia policy) for "biased research" (a term I heard once from an English teacher). "Biased research" is where research is steered in a way that forces an underlying concept. It should be avoided at all costs because it actually discredits an argument. For your "Washington Post" article, the page is entitled "Donald Trump's Accent Explained". This underlies the idea that Trump has an accent. And that is (in your own words) "what's wrong" with the article.LakeKayak (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2017 (UTC)