Unveiling the Complexity of New Linguistic Feature Adoption: A Focus on /w/ Deletion

Yoojin Kang

Assistant Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, Cheongju University; 50 Daesung-ro 298, Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, 28503, Korea

Abstract

This study examines whether Seoul-born adults who relocated to the Gyeongsang region in adulthood show evidence of acquiring regional phonological features of labiovelar glide reduction. Overall, /w/ tokens show systematic formant changes from onset to vowel midpoint, with substantial interspeaker variability. The statistical results indicate that extralinguistic predictor patterns differ according to gender. For female speakers, sociolinguistic awareness of the /w/ deletion is associated with a larger F2 change from onset to midpoint, consistent with stronger maintenance of the Gyeongsang-like realization, whereas length of residence and Gyeongsang Orientation Score show no significant effects. Awareness is not a significant predictor for male speakers. Instead, a higher Gyeongsang Orientation Score predicts a smaller F1 change from onset to midpoint, consistent with greater glide reduction, whereas a longer residence predicts a larger onset-to-midpoint change in both F1 and F2, consistent with stronger maintenance of the Seoul-like realization. The interview data suggests that professional environments and dense same-origin networks may sustain Standard Korean-oriented speech norms, which explains why residence duration and local orientation patterns differ. Overall, the findings indicate that adult second dialect outcomes for /w/ realization are selective and socially mediated rather than directly determined by time in the region.

초록

Vol. 40 No. 4 (2022.12)

Journal Abbreviation j. Korea Saf. Manag. Sci.
Frequency Published four times annually in March, June, September, and December
Doi Prefix 10.14353/sjk.
Year of Launching 1993
Publisher The Sociolinguistic Society of Korea

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socioling.jams.or.kr

The Sociolinguistic
Society of Korea

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- Tel: +81-10-3894-3164
- E-mail: schang@hoseo.edu

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