PHONETIC PECULIARITIES OF CANADIAN UKRAINIANS' SPEECH BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of phonetic characteristics of Canadian Ukrainians' speech of three age group representatives, who dwell in Alberta and Manitoba provincies, The study of Canadian variant of English has aroused great interest among linguists. Due attention has been paid to vowel system, its allophone variation, nevertheless prosodic system hasn't been studied thoroughly. None has been said about phonetic peculiarities of regional variants of English in Canada, in particular phonetic features of Canadian Ukrainians' speech behavior haven't got scientific qualification. The population of Canada is devided into three large groups: Anglophones – Canadian whose native language is English; French speaking Canadians and allophones, whose native language is not English. According to Canadian media sources than million Ukrainians live in Canada. Their speech peculiarities hasn't been investigated yet. This phonetic research makes an attempt to study phonetic variation on both segmental and prosodic levels and to reveal differentiating features, typical for Canadians' of Ukrainian origin speech. The conducted research allowed to single out the most specific features which expose the originality of Ukrainian origin Canadian's speech. The most frequent prosodic interferent features in the speech of the analysed informants are the following: sloping character of Falling and Rising nuclear tone, smooth melodic contur, prevalence of wavy Head. Differentiating vowel features in the speech of various age group Canadians are: diphtongization of short vowel phonemes, front articulation of back vowels, absence of short-long vowel opposition. Such phonetic peculiarities of Canadian's speech behavior are the result of native (Ukrainian) language interference. Most vividly these interfering features are expressed in the speech of more than 55 years old age group. Thus, speech behavior of a person is formed in childhood and is preservel in the speech during the whole period of life.