De LaurentESE

A Diachronic Study of the Idiolect of Giada De Laurentiis

  • Michael Marinaccio New York University

Abstract


An increasing amount of sociolinguistic research has been concentrated on diachronic idiolect change: the change of an individual’s dialect over time. This paper adds to this growing topic by analyzing the English idiolect change of Giada De Laurentiis, a heritage speaker of Italian. The study analyzes De Laurentiis’ LOT, START, and GOAT vowels, as well as the voice onset time (VOT) of voiceless stops [k] and [p] by measuring the utterances of the code-switched word ‘mascarpone’ across 20 seasons on television. The data reflect the influence of L2 US English (rhoticity, diphthongization, lengthened VOTs) on heritage Italian in De Laurentiis’ idiolect. 

Published
18-Dec-2021
How to Cite
Marinaccio, M. “De LaurentESE”. Lifespans and Styles, Vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2021, pp. 30-38, doi:10.2218/ls.v7i2.2021.6641.
Section
Articles