THE ROLE OF SOCIAL FACTORS IN THE CANADIAN VOWEL SHIFT: EVIDENCE FROM TORONTO

The Canadian Vowel Shift (CVS) has been the focus of a number of recent impressionistic and acoustic studies. This study provides further information about the social profile of the CVS in Toronto, with a focus on the roles of gender, age, and ethnicity. It offers an acoustic analysis of bit, bet, and bat vowels using tokens from sociolinguistic interviews with Torontonians of British, italian, and Chinese ancestry. While age and sex contribute to variation, there are no significant differences according to ethnicity for vowel height or backness of any vowel. These results suggest that Torontonians participate in this change in progress, regardless of ethnic group.