The Pronunciation of Iraq

Variation in the I r a q Vowels: Conservatives vs. Liberals Lauren Hall-Lew, Elizabeth Coppock, & Rebecca Starr Stanford 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: Ir a q
/æ/ variant indexes political conservativism.
/ah/ variant indexes political liberalism.
First Vowel: I raq
/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.

The Pronunciation of Iraq

by Lauren Hall-Lew on Nov 03, 2007

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