Gritty Philadelphia: Orientation to local ideology as a predictor of sound change

Abstract Local orientation has been shown to influence speakers’ participation in local dialect norms and ongoing sound changes since the beginning of modern sociolinguistics (e.g., Labov, 1963). I argue here that local orientation is best understood as an orientation to the ideological imagined place, rather than to the actual physical hometown itself. Analysis of the effect of orientation to the imagined Philadelphia shows that speakers’ personal orientation impacts their adoption of an ongoing change. This change is best understood when orientation is considered alongside a major structural influence on young speakers—secondary school attendance—using a bipartite network analysis. The sound change under investigation, a change in the conditioning of a split in /æ/, is highly abstract and complex, making it an unlikely candidate for overt or intentional identity work. Nevertheless, a regression analysis finds strong effects of both structural influences and personal orientation on speakers’ advancement in this abstract change.