Results III: Phonetic Analysis

As demonstrated in the previous chapter, the interviewees mentioned a few different phonetic items that they thought to be salient features of a Wisconsin English variety. The ones that were most frequently named were TRAP raising, GOAT monophthongization as well as MOUTH raising. This chapter follows perceptual dialectologists’ call to let “nonlinguists guide research into the actual patterns of variation in speech” by examining how these three features pattern linguistically as well as socially in Marathon County.