The Century of Language Change in Columbus (CLCC) Project
During the course of the 20th century, the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area underwent a period of massive and explosive growth, both in the central city, or urban, portion of Columbus, as well as the suburbs (especially during the second half of the 20th century). Given these intense changes, we might expect that such change would have an impact on the area's culture, and one aspect of culture is the language people use.
The Century of Language Change in Columbus (CLCC) Project is a research and field work project dedicated to documenting, analyzing, and presenting information pertaining to, changes that have occurred in Columbus speech during the course of the entire 20th century as a result of the geographic and cultural changes that impacted the area during this time period. In particular, the project focuses on variation in the way folks of various backgrounds pronounce vowel sounds--as these sounds are often one of the more salient markers of regional or local identity by speakers. By background, we mean here someone's social background characteristics--the social class affiliation some one might have, their sex (whether they are a man or a woman), their age, their race, and even quite possibly the location within the greater Columbus area in which someone grew up.
There are several topics covered on this Web site:
First, there are the results of our ongoing study of language changes in the community. These results will eventually be presented in a dissertation written by OSU graduate student David Durian. (Results are updated on a regular basis.) The results will include analyses of vowel variation among Columbusities born throughout the 20th Century, as well as a brief reanalysis of patterns of vowel variation found among Columbus-area residents born during the 19th Century (coming soon).
Second, there is our call for subjects, this provides information on how to participate in the study. As you will see in the results section, one of the things we do is make vowel plots of folks' speech--it's like taking a picture of the variation you show as a speaker when you speak. If such a picture is something you might find interesting to have "taken"--please consider participating. Then, you can see how your speech "stacks up" to what other peoples' speech looks like in the community. Please see the call for subjects to check if you qualify and for details on how to contact us.
Third, there is some information on the CLCC Project researchers. If you are an OSU linguistics undergraduate, and you are looking for credit for an internship in linguistics (LING 489), please consider working for the CLCC Project. The CLCC is currently unable to offer a paid internship, but we do offer exciting opportunities to gain hands on experience in cutting edge phonetic analysis techniques, as well as academic credit for doing so! If you are interested, contact Julie McGory for more details.