Perception of dialectal variation: Can speakers of Western Canadian English perceive New Zealand English /r/‐sandhi?

Abstract

The current study investigates perception of New Zealand English /r/‐sandhi by speakers of Western Canadian English. It investigates whether speakers of Western Canadian English can differentiate between intrusive‐/r/ (e.g., sawing [saeoɹəŋ]) and linking‐/r/ (e.g., soaring [saeoɹəŋ]) of /r/‐sandhi across morpheme boundaries and across word boundaries (e.g., linking: boar and, intrusive: boa and). Reaction time and accuracy were recorded in a two‐alternative forced choice experiment. Stimuli showed significant acoustic differences between the linking‐/r/ and intrusive‐/r/ environments, with intrusive‐/r/ having a shorter duration than linking‐/r/. Participants were highly accurate and faster at recognizing words with linking‐/r/ (e.g., soaring) and extremely inaccurate and slower at recognizing intrusive‐/r/ (e.g., sawing). Participants’ responses to linking‐/r/ at a morpheme boundary were significantly more accurate and faster than responses with linking‐/r/ across word boundaries. The results of this experiment address the phonetic variability present in cross‐dialect perception and begin to investigate strategies listeners utilize to accurately perceive speech.