This week, we looked at William Labov’s article “How I Got Into Linguistics, and What I Got Out of It." Labov explains how, on the basis of linguistics alone, he saved a man from a prison sentence. Paul Prinzivalli was thought to be behind bomb threats made to the LA airport. The police had tape recordings of calls made by the suspect, and they claimed that the voice on the recordings sounded like Prinzivalli. However, Prinzivalli had a New York City accent, and Labov recognized that the voice on the recording had a Boston accent. Labov presented linguistic evidence in court, and thereafter it was ruled that Prinzivalli was innocent.
I found this case study to be fascinating. Something as seemingly simple as an accent made the difference between this man keeping his freedom and being wrongfully imprisoned. I looked up videos on YouTube of people speaking in NYC and Boston accents. Having done this, I can vouch for the fact that, to the untrained ear, these two accents do sound somewhat similar. To a linguist, it's probably quite simple to distinguish between the two. Indeed, Labov said “the moment I heard the recordings I was sure that he was innocent.” Labov picked up on this immediately. However, I was much less certain, and apparently I am not alone in this. According to Labov, prior to his testimony, the judge heard "no difference" between NYC and Boston accents.
This case is definitely interesting, but it’s also thought-provoking. Do you pick up on any major differences between the two accents? What might account for the two sounding similar to "regular" people, yet being so distinct to Labov? Interested to hear your thoughts! :)
I found this case study to be fascinating. Something as seemingly simple as an accent made the difference between this man keeping his freedom and being wrongfully imprisoned. I looked up videos on YouTube of people speaking in NYC and Boston accents. Having done this, I can vouch for the fact that, to the untrained ear, these two accents do sound somewhat similar. To a linguist, it's probably quite simple to distinguish between the two. Indeed, Labov said “the moment I heard the recordings I was sure that he was innocent.” Labov picked up on this immediately. However, I was much less certain, and apparently I am not alone in this. According to Labov, prior to his testimony, the judge heard "no difference" between NYC and Boston accents.
This case is definitely interesting, but it’s also thought-provoking. Do you pick up on any major differences between the two accents? What might account for the two sounding similar to "regular" people, yet being so distinct to Labov? Interested to hear your thoughts! :)
Good ol' Bill, linguistic royalty.
Image courtesy of Alchetron.
I find various accents very interesting to hear and did a little research on my part. Both accents drop their r's in the end of or middle of the words. But to the ear, the intonation, emphasis, and pitch of the accents sound practically the same. Only a true New Yorker or Bostonian will catch the difference. My old neighbor lived in Boston the majority of his life and until that point, I never heard a true Boston accent before. I remember his voice was so distinct that I could pick him out anywhere. In my opinion, the Boston accent sounded much more elongated and a bit twangy than a New York accent. Just a personal observation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the intonation, emphasis, and pitch occurred similarly between the two. I definitely caught minor differences, but I think the differences would be harder to distinguish if you weren't actively looking for them. It's interesting to me that your neighbor kept his Boston accent after moving. My mom lived in Endicott, New York for the first thirty years of her life, then moved to western PA when she married my dad. Her family's accents have always been so distinct to me. My mom had a bit of an accent, particularly on certain words, but it is much stronger among her siblings, nieces, and nephews. I'm not sure how my mom's accent "wore off" when your neighbor's stuck around. It could just be that I was very used to my mom's voice, so it just sounded like "mom" to me. The familiarity might have prevented any sort of branding beyond that.
DeleteI personally do not hear much of a difference, but like you said, to the trained ear, I am sure that it is fairly easy to tell the two apart. This was very interesting, though. I am obsessed with true-crime stories, and always think about this kind of stuff, so it was neat to see a post like this. It has always fascinated me how (practically) any area of study can work its way into an investigation.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I loved the practical edge that this post gave to linguistics. Learning language is interesting in and of itself, but this article showed a usefulness I never would have expected.
DeleteAfter listening to the accents, they sound similar, but a few of the NY vowels sound more like "aw," while some of the Boston ones sounded like "ah." I'm not sure if that is right or not, but it was my point of reference when listening to the differences!
ReplyDeleteI thought this case was super interesting too! Maybe "regular" people can't pick up on the differences because they have not trained their ears to hear certain sounds. Just like it is close to impossible to hear a sound in a language that uses a set of sounds that are very different from your own, it is probably difficult to differentiate between a dialect's subtle sound differences for the same reason.
It's definitely harder to catch something when you don't know what you're looking for! This could also be why it's harder to identify differences between dialects. You don't know what the differences are, which makes it harder to find them. I think you could be onto something with the aw-ah observation though.
DeleteThe accents must sound similar if no one thought to play devils advocate and say "maybe he was just faking the Boston accent". Though I would think that if you were going to fake an accent on the call you would fake the local accent as to not draw attention to you. The most defining factor for me for the two accents is the way they pronounce their rs its very distinct and I can tell how the untrained ear would get them confused.
ReplyDeleteLabov seemed to have implied that this guy was being framed. Apparently, he had some issues with the higher ups, and this was a way of "shutting him up." Funny how his speech was what ended up setting him free.
DeleteThat's so cool you followed up on this aspect of Labov's reflection, Kate. Forensic Linguistics is a whole--and relatively new--subfield of linguistics. There are even degrees in it nowadays.
ReplyDeleteHere's a fascinating New Yorker piece on it that makes for enjoyable reading:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/words-on-trial
And here's the Wikipedia page on it, followed by links from the Linguistic Society of America:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_linguistics
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/language-specialties/forensic-linguistics