Session Sociophonetics II:Sociophonetics II
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| Sociophonetics II-1 |
VOWEL SPACE AREAS ACROSS DIALECTS AND GENDER
Ewa Jacewicz, Speech Perception and Acoustics Labs, Ohio State Robert Allen Fox, Speech Perception and Acoustics Labs, Ohio State Joseph Salmons, University of Wiscons-Madison Paper File |
| This study compares vowel spaces in three regional varieties of American English spoken in central Ohio, south-central Wisconsin, and western North Carolina to determine whether the significant variation in the vowel systems of these dialects also affects the dialect-specific vowel space area. The gender-related differences are assessed by comparing the unnormalized (in Hz) and normalized formant frequency values. Significant effects of speaker dialect were found for the vowel space area defined by four “corner” vowels. However, there were no differences between dialects in the area of an extended 5-vowel space. The results indicate that, despite large cross-dialectal differences in the positions of the vowels in the acoustic space, the extended vowel space area encompassing a complete vowel system is unaffected by dialectal variation. The differences in the size of the vowel space due to speaker gender were eliminated by normalizing formant frequency values. | |
| Sociophonetics II-2 |
Acoustic characteristics of Standard Dutch /γ/
Sander van der Harst, UiL-OTS/CLS Hans Van de Velde, UiL-OTS Bert Schouten, UiL-OTS Paper File |
| In this paper an acoustic analysis of Standard Dutch /γ/ is presented. 160 speakers, stratified for nationality, region, gender and age, performed a reading task in which (γ) was embedded in a carrier sentence. The analysis is based on measurements of the resonance frequencies, the intensity, the periodicity and the duration of the realizations of (γ). The results show that regional variation is high. Furthermore, the existence of the voiced fricative phoneme /γ/ in Dutch will be questioned. | |
| Sociophonetics II-3 |
/u/-fronting in RP: a link between sound change and diminished perceptual compensation for coarticulation?
Jonathan Harrington, IPS, Munich Felicitas Kleber, IPS, Munich Ulrich Reubold, IPS, Munich Paper File |
| The present study is concerned with a perceptual analysis of /u/-fronting in Southern British English, Received Pronunciation and with whether there is an age-dependent difference in perceptual judgments to synthetic /i-u/ continua. A second aim was to test the hypothesis that younger listeners would be less likely to attribute a fronted /u/ perceptually to the coarticulatory fronting effects of the left context. We synthesized /i-u/ continua and embedded them in two contexts: firstly, 'yeast-used', in which the initial /j/ exerts a marked effect on /u/-fronting; and secondly 'sweep-swoop' in which the preceding /w/ is likely to induce /u/-backing. Taken together, the results of responses to these continua so far suggest that young and old listeners respond differently to a sound change in progress and also that /u/-fronting in RP may be related to a perceptual reinterpration of coarticulatory-induced /u/-fronting. | |