Front Rounded Vowels of Heritage Korean in Northern China

초록

This chapter examines how the front rounded vowels /y/ and /ø/ are realized in two varieties of Chinese Korean: Hunchun and Dandong. In Seoul Korean, these vowels have mostly diphthongized, but variation is reported in other dialects. In a large-scale study including acoustic measurements from the two aforementioned heritage varieties, two homeland varieties (i.e., Seoul and Northern Hamgyeong), and local Mandarin varieties, as well as self-reports of language background, we examine the potential influence of ancestral dialect, prestige dialect, and contact language on the realization of heritage varieties. Results show more monophthongal realizations of the vowels in question in Dandong, Hunchun, and Northern Hamgyeong Korean than in Seoul Korean. We also find that Dandong speakers show less diphthongization of /y/ than Hunchun speakers, whereas the two groups do not differ in the production of /ø/. We attribute this difference to influence from Mandarin, which has a more dominant community-level presence in Dandong than in Hunchun. © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2024.

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