The Pronunciation of Iraq

Variation in the Iraq Vowels: Conservatives

vs. LiberalsLauren Hall-Lew, Elizabeth Coppock, & Rebecca

StarrStanford University

{ dialect, rlstarr, coppock } @ stanford . edu

NWAV36, University of Pennsylvania, October 13, 2007

How do YOU say it?

Observation

• Iraq varies according to the second vowel:– r/æ/k vs. r/ah/k [1], [2]

• Iraq also varies according to the first vowel:– /ay/ vs. /Ih/ vs. /iy/

[1] Shapiro 1997 [2] Boberg 1997; 1999

Hypotheses

• Second Vowel: Iraq– /æ/ variant indexes political

conservativism.– /ah/ variant indexes political

liberalism. • First Vowel: Iraq

– /ay/ variant indexes political conservatism.

– /iy/ and /Ih/ index political liberalism.

Motivation

• Identity & Political Psychology intersect:– “... intergroup conflict, conformity to group

norms, the effects of low group status ...” [3]

• Recent Work:– American identity, Patriotism, & Ethnicity

[4]

• Identity & Phonological Variables– potential resource for the expression of a

political identity[3] Tajfel & Turner 1979; Huddy 2001

[4] Citrin et al, 1990 & 2000, cited in Huddy 2001

Motivation•“Foreign (a)” variable, as in plaza, is often realized as /ah/ in US English due to attitudinal factors rather than phonological factors. [2]

•US English speakers evaluate /ah/ to be “more correct, educated, and sophisticated than /æ/ as a nativization of foreign (a).” [2]

•“Respect engenders imitation [retention of foreign sounds]; disrespect integration [full nativization]” [5]

[5] Weinreich 1968, cited & comments added in Boberg 1999

Pilot Study: Methods

• Two networks with different political leanings: FoxNews and KQED (Bay Area NPR station) television and radio.

• Collected all instances of Iraq occurring in top news stories at the time, as well as in all news stories within a 24-hour period.

• Classified speakers as publicly conservative, publicly liberal, or unknown.

Pilot Study: Data• 686 tokens of Iraq• 248 speakers

– 44 publicly conservative– 32 publicly liberal– 172 unknown

• Distribution of conservatives and liberals not significantly different on KQED or FoxNews

• No significant differences in Iraq pronunciation between networks

• Network data was combined

Pilot Study: Results

Significant finding:

83% of conservatives, but only 31% of liberals, had at least one occurrence of the /æ/ variant. (F=17.7, df=1, p < 0.0001)

Pilot Study: Other Results

• Military personnel:– All 15 military personnel used /æ/– 14 of 15 used /ay/ for the first vowel,

while all non-military speakers used /Ih/

– The 1 military member who used /Ih/ was explicitly an anti-war Democrat, General Wesley Clark.

Pilot Study: Other Results

• Virtually all news readers and news anchors use /ah/, confirming the prediction by Boberg (1999) of /ah/ in more formal styles

Pilot Study: Interpretation

• Indications that both vowels in Iraq may index political orientation.

Limitations of Pilot Study

• Political leanings of speakers not always clear.

• Sampling was not highly systematic.• Not controlled for:

– Register– Audience– Regional dialect variation

Main Study: Speakers

• Members of the US House of Representatives:

– Representative of all dialect regions of the US– Clear political affiliations

Data: Iraq Troop Surge Debate

• Three days of debate in February 2007• Debate topic: Resolution 63, stating

that the House disapproves of troop surge

• All speeches aired on C-SPAN, posted online at http://iraq.armyofone.org

• Speeches given by 304 out of 435 total members of the House

Surge Debate Study: Methods

• Total number of speakers included: 259– Only included speakers who said Iraq

3 times or more.

• Total number of tokens coded: N=1959

• Mean = 8 tokens per speaker• Median = 6 tokens per speaker

Speaker Factors Coded: Political Stance measures

• Party affiliation• Vote on anti-surge resolution (to

capture war stance)• Economic and Social Liberalism rating:

– percentage ratings from http://www.ontheissues.org

– based on voting record– Conservatives have a higher economic %– Liberals have a higher social %

Speaker Factors Coded: Speech variety measures

• [+/-] Southern Accent– /ay/ monophthongization– perceptual measures

• Regional accent / Speech variety– subjective, with some inter-rater

judgments

• State they represent– Region of the US, based on US Census– Red/Blue status, based on 2004 election

Speaker Factors Coded: Other demographic info

• Ethnicity– Particular attention to AAE speakers

• Age– Here, 4 age categories, approx same N

per cat.

• Sex Class– Subjective classification

Surge Debate Study: Methods

• Logistic regression analysis based on binary dependent variable:– over 50% use of /æ/ in Iraq for any

given speaker

• Only tokens of Iraq included– Iraqi and Iran also coded for, but not

grouped with Iraq for analysis.

%/æ/ use by number of speakers

• 85% of speakers consistently pronounce Iraq always with one vowel or the other.

• 15% of the speakers varied in their pronunciation of Iraq.– This does not include Iraqi, which was more

likely to be pronounced differently

• In contrast to news readers from pilot, Representatives favor /æ/ over /ah/

%/æ/ use by number of speakers

Results by Party

• Political party is a highly significant predictor of the Iraq pronunciation – correlation=7.29, p=0.025

• Republicans are statistically more likely to use the /æ/ variant

• Political party significantly predicts Iraq pronunciation even when controlling for region, regional accent, age group, sex class, and ethnicity.

Vowel Use by Political Party

Economic & Social Liberalism

• http://www.ontheissues.org

• Economic & Social Liberalism scores based on voting record.

• High Economic Lib = more conservative

• High Social Lib = more liberal

Economic & Social Liberalism

• Economic Liberalism score:

– Speakers with high Econ % (conservatives) are significantly more likely to say /æ/ in Iraq, when controlling for all factors except party.

– consistent with our political party findings

• No significant effect of Social Liberalism score

Results by Age

• Age grouped into 4 categories, each including approximately 68 speakers:

≤ 1944, 1945-1949, 1950-1957, ≥ 1958

• No significant effect of age, although older people appear to use less /æ/.[1]

• Political Party within each age category: consistent pattern, not significant.

[1] cf. Shapiro 1997, that /æ/ is the earlier form

Results by Region

• Test according to:– region of representation– the presence of monophthongized /ay/

in closed syllables

• Potential interaction between region, surge stance, and political party:– More pro-surge conservatives in

Southern states

Results by Region

•4 Regions: – South – Midwest – Northeast – West

• Defined by the U.S. Census Bureau

Results by Region

•No significant effect of Region:– No effect of southern accent, broadly

coded •any presence of monophthong /ay/

– No effect of southern accent, narrowly coded•all /ay/ are monophthongized

• Standard vs. Regional accents: not significant

Variation by Speaker Sex

• 40 of 271 (15%) Congresspeople in this sample are Congresswomen.

• Women tend to use /ah/ more than /æ/, but not significantly more than men. (p < .08 as a main effect)

• Party remains significant when controlling for speaker sex class.

What About The First Vowel?

• Variants we heard for the first vowel in Iraq:– /Ih/– /iy/– /ay/

• Grouped /Ih/ and /iy/ together as (i) in final analysis because they were difficult to distinguish perceptually, and /iy/ was rare.

The First Vowel in ‘Iraq’

The First Vowel in Iraq• Same bimodal distribution as in the

histogram for % /æ/:•46 Congresspeople have >50% /ay/•141 Congresspeople have 50% or less /ay/

• 18% of the speakers vary between /ay/ and (i)

• Within all second-vowel /æ/ tokens, 24% use first-vowel /ay/

• 2 speakers say Iraq as /ay/r/ah/q categorically.

The First Vowel in Iraq

• There is no statistically significant predictive variable for the first vowel.

• Non-significant trends:– Within people who have Southern

accents, /ay/ correlates with anti-surge– Omitting AAE speakers overall, within

non-Southern accents, /ay/ correlates with pro-surge

SUMMARY

• In the US House of Representatives, variation of the second vowel in Iraq correlates with the Political Party of the speaker.– /ah/ correlates with Democrats– /æ/ correlates with Republicans

• No factors significantly predict the pronunciation of the first vowel.

Indexing Political Identity

• Implications for variation• Potential complications

– Complex: How to operationalize?

• Political psychology [6]

– Political views may be a critical aspect of an individual’s identity

– Correlated with Political Identity:• Age (old vs. young)• Class Mobility & Social Networks• Personality Type & Value System• Religion

[6] See, e.g.: Brewer 2001; Conover and Feldman 1981; De Graaf et al. 1995; Huddy 2001; Huddy and Khatib 2007; Mackenzie 1978; Kymlicka 2001, cited in Charney 2003

Operationalizing Political Identity

• 3 measures here:– Political Party– Troop Surge Stance– Econ/Social Liberalism

• All 3 correlated highly• All 3 also differed in terms of

predictive power.

Operationalizing Political Identity

• Anti-Surge Republicans (N=10)• Pro-Surge Democrats (N=1)

• 8 of the Republicans use /æ/ & the Democrat uses /ah/.

• 2 Republicans have less than 50% /æ/, so we can take a closer look at them.

Future Directions

• People whose voting record diverges from their political party’s

• Synchronic patterns of variation – within individuals– speech communities

• What's going on with /ay/r/ah/k?• Will Iraq data from Congress change

as the war continues?

Future Directions• Other Terms:

– Iraqi: more variable within speaker, what’s the pattern?

– Iran & Iranian: do their vowels pattern like Iraq’s?

– Vietnam: consider data from the 60s/70s vs. now

• Work with non-politicians:– Attitudinal Surveys (cf. Boberg 1999)

– Production Experiment– Perception Experiment

Thank You!

We would like to thank:– Ben Munson– Laura Staum Casasanto– www.youtube.com– “Eric,” Canadian software architect,

age 28, a.k.a. the guy who assembled the videos on: iraq.armyofone.com

References• Boberg, C. (1997). Variation and change in the Nativization of Foreign (a) in

English. PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania. • Boberg, C. (1999). The Attitudinal Component of variation in American English

foreign (a) Nativization. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18:49–61. • Brewer, M. B. (2001). The many faces of social identity: Implications for political

psychology. Political Psychology, 22:115–25. • Charney, E. (2003). Identity and Liberal Nationalism. American Political Science

Review. 97(2): 295-310.• Conover, P. J. and Feldman, S. (1981). The origins and meaning of liberal/

conservative self-identification. American Journal of Political Science, 25:617–45. 2• De Graaf, N. D., Nieuwbeerta, P., and Heath, A. (1995). Class mobility and political

preferences: Individual and contextual effects. The American Journal of Sociology, 100:997–1027.

• Huddy, L. (2001). From social to political identity: A critical examination of social identity theory. Political Psychology, 22:127–56.

• Huddy, L. and Khatib, N. (2007). American patriotism, national identity, and political involvement. American Journal of Political Science, 51:63–77.

• Kymlicka, W. (2001). Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Mackenzie, W. J. M. (1978). Political Identity. New York: St. Martin’s Press. The Pew Research Center (2004). Overview: News audiences increasingly politicized. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=215

• Rhodebeck, L. A. (1993). The Politics of Greed? Political Preferences among the Elderly. The Journal of Politics, 55(2):342-364.

• Shapiro, M. (1997). Broad and Flat A in Marked Words. American Speech. 72(4): 437-439.

Variation by Ethnicity

• 23 of 271 (8.5%) Congresspeople in this sample were identified as speakers of AAE.

• Given the low N, no significant effect was found for the /ah/ vs. /æ/ variable between AAE and non-AAE speakers.

• Impressionistically, AAE speakers tended to favor /ay/ for the first vowel more than non-AAE speakers, who appeared to favor /iy/ or /ih/.

• However, no significant effect was found.

What about Shrubby?

• George W. Bush is a little bit variable– Based on data from Pilot Study (NPR

and FoxNewsRadio): speeches, interviews, etc.

– From N=20 tokens, 2 = /ah/ & 18 = /æ/– Possible gradual switch from /æ/ to

/ah/?– Call for longitudinal analysis!!

No Interactions

• Are there interactions between any of the variables?

• Checking for interactions:– Geography is correlated with Party,– Party is correlated with Vowel use,– But Geography is not statistically

correlated with Vowel use.

No Interactions

• When controlling for all other factors, we still get a highly significant effect for political party.

• No interaction between factors is significant for predicting vowel use.

• In an additive statistical model there is only an effect from political party.