Regional variation in articulation rate in French spoken in Canada

Abstract

This study examines articulation rate in three varieties of Canadian French and includes consideration of speaking style (reading vs. spontaneous), speaker’s age and gender, and length of inter-pause intervals. The varieties are spoken in different geographic areas of Canada – Quebec City (Quebec), Tracadie (New Brunswick), and Windsor (Ontario) – where there are different degrees of French–English contact. The main research question asks how these different contact situations are related to variation in articulation rate. Results show that in both reading and spontaneous speech articulation rates were faster among Quebec City speakers, where French is in a low-contact setting, and slower among speakers from Tracadie and Windsor, where there are greater degrees of contact. The effects of other factors are the same across the three regions: AR was faster in spontaneous productions than in reading; AR decreased with age in the reading task; AR was faster as the length of the inter-pausal intervals increased. The discussion points to similarities and differences with varieties of French spoken in Europe and underscores the importance of language contact in accounting for variation in articulation rate.