Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Pin/Pen Merger, Isaiah Solorzano

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

The Sound Change Across Kansas: PEN/PIN Merger

Isaiah Solorzano, Mary Kohn

Department of English

College of Arts & Sciences

Mergers, a sound change that present themselves in the background of everyday conversations, usually going unnoticed and uninterrupted across speech communities. I am interested in the sound change of short vowels found in word pairs like pen-pin, shown to be changing ^[1]. In 2014, Strelluf suggested the low-back merger is present in Kansas City due, in part, to a large initial population of South Midland speakers. This study indicates the merger should be advancing ^[1]. We do not understand, …

Languages Divided: Segregation And The Role Of Linguistic Prejudice In Speaker Evaluation, Mary E. Kohn

Center for Engagement and Community Development

This talk presents research on the role of segregation in perpetuating language differences in the United States. Evidence from a 20-year longitudinal study demonstrates that participation in so-called "Mainstream American English" correlates with access to majority-white schools and neighborhoods. Given the extensive research on linguistic discrimination, I will facilitate a discussion on how linguistic differences must be considered when creating environments for civic discourse.