Polish word-final nasal vowels

Variation and, potentially, change

Authors

  • Karolina Baranowska Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Author
  • Kamil Kaźmierski Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.37918

Keywords:

nasal vowels, Polish, sociophonetics, education level, language change, language variation

Abstract

Although there exists a set of prescriptive rules concerning the realization of Polish nasal vowels, it can be observed that their pronunciation differs across dialects, especially in word-final position. While there is ample research on vowel nasality in Polish, sociolinguistic studies investigating the realization of nasal vowels seem to be scant and this is why we aim to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between the realization of word-final nasal vowels and different sociolinguistic factors including age, gender, education, place of residence, and style (read vs. conversational speech). Moreover, we focus on a potential change in prestige associated with the variation. Fifty native speakers of Polish living in Greater Poland were asked to read aloud a text and describe a picture. Having analysed the words containing nasal vowels word-finally, we found, inter alia, statistically significant associations between age and the variation in the realization of nasal vowels.

Author Biographies

  • Karolina Baranowska, Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

    Karolina Baranowska is a PhD student at the Department of Applied English Linguistics and Language Teaching, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. She obtained an MA in English from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, in 2018. Her research interests include sociophonetics, variationist sociolinguistics and second language acquisition.

  • Kamil Kaźmierski, Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

    Kamil Kaźmierski is Assistant Professor at the Department of  Contemporary English Language, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He obtained a PhD in English and American Studies from the University of Vienna, Austria, in 2013. His research interests include theories of phonological storage, evolutionary linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics.

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Published

2020-10-02

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Baranowska, K., & Kaźmierski, K. (2020). Polish word-final nasal vowels: Variation and, potentially, change. Sociolinguistic Studies, 14(1-2), 135–162. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.37918