Effects of Gender on Emphasis Production in Jordanian Arabic: A Socio-Phonetic Study

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of gender on two emphatic sounds, namely [sˤ] and [tˤ], in Ajlouni-Jordanian Arabic, a sub-dialect of Rural Jordanian Arabic. The study was mainly motivated by the relatively small literature on the bearing(s) of gender on emphasis production in Jordanian Arabic in general and in Ajlouni Jordanian Arabic specifically. To do so, the effects gender has on emphasis productions in this dialect were tested in mono- and bi-syllabic words, with the emphatic sounds occurring both word-initially and word-finally. The vowel qualities which were incorporated in the stimuli of this study include the long low-back vowel [a:], the short low-back vowel [a], the long high-front vowel [i:], the short mid-high front vowel [ɪ], the long high-back vowel [u:] and the short mid-high back vowel [ʊ]. The sample of this study consisted of 12 native speakers of Ajlouni-Jordanian Arabic, with each speaker producing 48 minimal pairs. The acoustic measurements that were carried out on the data are consonant duration (CD), Voice Onset Time (VOT), and the vowel first three formant frequencies (F1, F2, and F3). The study showed that, relative to gender, only VOT was a reliable acoustic correlate of emphasis where CD, on the one hand, and F1, F2, and F3 in both the target and non-target syllables, on the other hand, showed no significance.