Monophthongs and diphthongs

ChcE tends to be monophthongal, particularly its high vowels, /i, u/ (Santa Ana 1991: 155). This contrasts with the typically diphthongal other AmE dialects. Santa Ana, whose work involved impressionistic transcription as well as spectrographic measurements of naturally occurring speech gathered in sociolinguistic interviews, noted more off-glides in ChcE mid vowel pronunciation. He sampled the speech of four U.S.-born Los Angeles residents who represented different generations of speakers, as well as a narrative of the previously-mentioned young male immigrant ELL.

Later studies have corroborated many of Santa Ana’s findings. Fought (1997, 2003), for example, found that high vowels, /e, ʊ/ , were articulated with fewer and shorter off-glides. According to Fought, Chicanos articulated /aɪ/ with no loss of glide, but seemed to employ a higher tongue-height (lower F1) nucleus. Fought also found that /aʊ/ is most often pronounced with the Euro-American off-glide, but older speakers articulated a glide-less [a], as in counselor. The monophthongal quality of ChcE vowels is most distinguished in exclamations, such as Ah!, Oh!, or in emphasized final syllables of vowel-final words, such as the underscored syllables in “I do, too, live in East L.A.!” ChcE speakers often pronounce sustained duration syllables with minimal off-gliding, no matter how long the segment is prolonged.