Homogeneity and autonomy of Canadian Raising

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// World Englishes, 2012, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 534–548.Canadian Raising is the process in which the low nucleus of the diphthongs /aw/ and /ay/ is raised to mid position before voiceless consonants. Although the process is often featured in simple stereotypes of Canadian speech (e.g. oot and aboot for out and about), it is in reality a far more complex phenomenon in that it is not restricted to Canada, does not occur uniformly across the country, and has been variously claimed to be receding in favour of American standards, particularly in Vancouver. This paper presents the results of two studies addressing these issues. The first is an apparent-time study of teens and adults in Vancouver. Results suggest that CR is generally a stable feature of Vancouver English, while both the raised and unraised variants show a strong apparent-time fronting trend. These results demonstrate Vancouver to align with other Canadian cities with regards to CR. The second is a comparison between speakers in Washington State and Vancouver, British Columbia. Results indicate that the most widely- remarked aspect of CR, the height of raised /aw/, continues to differentiate Washington from Vancouver speakers, but that in all other respects, speakers from the two regions demonstrate more similarities than differences.