Article published In: Variation and change in the languages of Indonesia
Edited by Maya Ravindranath Abtahian and Abigail C. Cohn
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 7:2] 2021
► pp. 142–167
Gender, mobility and contact
Stability and change in an Acehnese dialect
Published online: 6 October 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.20007.tra
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.20007.tra
Abstract
We examine variation in a rural variety of Acehnese spoken in Aceh Province, to better understand the impact of
long-term contact with Indonesian and increasing urbanization. The Great Aceh variety is characterized by variable realization of
word-final (t) as a dental vs. glottal stop. Analyses of over 2,000 tokens of this variable from a corpus of spontaneous speech
from 35 speakers indicate that the variability is relatively stable among men, and among women of high mobility, measured in terms
of education, occupation, and time spent outside Great Aceh. Women with low mobility produce the lowest rates of [t̪], and in this
group we observe a higher rate of [t̪] by younger than older women, suggesting change over time. We thus find both stability –
among those who have long enjoyed high levels of mobility – and change – among those most affected by recent social changes,
namely low-mobility women.
Abstract (Indonesian)
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meneliti variasi pada ragam bahasa Aceh yang digunakan di Kabupaten Aceh
Besar di Provinsi Aceh, untuk lebih memahami efek jangka panjang dari kontak dengan Bahasa Indonesia dan peningkatan urbanisasi.
Bahasa Aceh dialek Aceh Besar ditandai oleh variasi pengucapan (t) di akhir kata sebagai konsonan hambat dental atau glotal.
Analisis lebih dari 2.000 token dari variasi pengucapan (t) di akhir kata, yang diambil dari korpus wicara oleh 35 penutur,
menunjukkan bahwa pengucapan dental [t̪] relatif stabil digunakan oleh laki-laki, dan oleh perempuan dengan tingkat mobilitas
tinggi. Hal ini diukur dari segi pendidikan, jenis pekerjaan, dan waktu yang dihabiskan di luar Aceh Besar. Wanita dengan
mobilitas rendah menunjukkan tingkat pengucapan [t̪] paling rendah, dan dalam kelompok ini juga ditemukan tingkat pengucapan [t̪]
yang tinggi oleh kelompok yang lebih muda, yang mana hal ini menunjukkan adanya perubahan bahasa dari waktu ke waktu. Oleh sebab
itu, dapat disimpulkan bahwa penelitian ini menemukan stabilitas pada kelompok yang sejak awal telah memiliki tingkat mobilitas
tinggi dan perubahan pada mereka yang paling terpengaruh oleh perubahan sosial saat ini, yaitu perempuan dengan mobilitas
rendah.
Article outline
- 1.Language contact in Great Aceh
- 2.Data for the study of variation and change in Great Aceh
- 2.1Great Aceh speech corpus
- 2.2Participants
- 3.Word-final (t) glottalization as a linguistic variable in Great Aceh
- 3.1Word-final (t) glottalization and language contact
- 3.2Extraction and coding of word-final (t)
- 4.Word final (t) in spontaneous speech vs. reading tasks
- 5.Word-final (t) in spontaneous speech
- 5.1Phonological conditioning
- 5.2Social conditioning: Gender and mobility over time
- 5.3Modeling the constraints on variable word-final (t)
- 6.Gender, mobility and contact in Great Aceh
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
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