Travel Patterns and Country Identity in Northwest Ohio Vowels

Language users’ choices are shaped both by the linguistic forms used around them and by the socioindexical meanings of those forms. Teasing out these two factors is not always easy, but both offer important avenues for understanding language change at the community level. This study explores the vowel patterns of 22 men living in rural Defiance County, Ohio, an understudied area near the boundary between the Midland and Inland North dialect regions of American English. The authors briefly document vowel patterns in the area and investigate whether travel patterns predict /æ/-raising and fronting, or /ɑ/-, /u/-, and /o/-fronting and whether “country” identity predicts monophthongization of /u/, /o/, and /aɪ/. Participants’ vowel systems were neither clearly Inland North nor clearly Midland, showing elements of both systems. Country identity received moderate support as a factor, predicting /u/ and /aɪ/ diphthong length, while travel patterns were less well supported, correlating only with /ɑ/-fronting. Results support previous classifications of the area as a mixed or transitional zone and offer minimal support for pure exposure and moderate support for socioindexical identity as influences on language change.