A sociophonetic study of creaky voice across language, gender and age in Canadian English-French bilinguals

Nasalization reduction and grammaticalization of genre in Swiss French: a corpus-based sociophonetic study

Mapping Segmental Variations in Pakistani English: A Sociophonetic Study

This study examined the influence of social status and gender on using voice affectation. The aim of this study is to find out the sociophonetic strategies that are used to convey voice affectation, show which strategies were more frequently used, and discovering the important roles of social status and gender in using voice affectation. The main conclusion of the study was that creaky voice, the frequent use of filler words, and uptalk were the sociophonetic strategies that were used to convey voice affectation. It can also be concluded that, through social status, these affected characters see themselves as influential people in society and their followers imitate their actions; as a result, this leads them to being affected personalities. Moreover, both genders used affectation, but they differ in the strategies that are used to convey voice affectation.

In multilingual Macau, Macau Mandarin (MacM) exhibits substantial variation due to its complex linguistic landscape. This study investigates lexical tones in MacM, focusing on differences across age and gender group. Twenty-four fluent Mandarin speakers were recruited and stratified by age and gender. The findings reveal a reduced tonal space in MacM compared to Putonghua, the standard form of Mandarin used in mainland China, which partly results from physiological factors. Additionally, despite clear first-language (L1) influence on MacM across all age groups, this study identifies generational differences in tonal production. Younger speakers demonstrate greater assimilation toward Putonghua, likely reflecting the increasing use of Mandarin by the younger generation. Gender also appears to interact with age-related patterns, as females seem more likely to lead T2 and T3 tonal mergers in MacM. This study offers valuable insights into the current characteristics and future trends of MacM tones, providing new evidence on the factors influencing tonal variation and advancing a more nuanced understanding of these dynamics.

The present project focuses on the study of the influence of two social factors, age and gender, on the frequency and variation of seven different types of dysfluencies (filled pauses, silent pauses, repairs, repetitions, false starts, vowel and consonant lengthening) in the spontaneous speech of native English speakers from England. The first part of the present article provides a general characterization of the relevant types of dysfluencies, together with the main issues concerning the production of speech dysfluencies. The empirical part presents the analyses of the recordings of 32 native English speakers from England. The overall results considering general influence of age and gender show that the only significant difference is between age groups, with older speakers producing more dysfluencies than younger speakers. Gender, on the other hand, does not make the difference significant, except for vowel lengthenings, that were produced significantly more by female speakers than male speakers, and repetitions, which is the only type of dysfluency where the difference is significant and influenced by both age and gender, with older male speakers producing significantly more dysfluencies than any other group.

This research is a sociophonetic study of the ethnic variety of Nepali spoken by the Magar community in Baglung as their mother tongue. It is unknown which Magar group they belong to and which Magar language their ancestral language was. Data were collected from one male and one female subject at the three research locations. For the F1×F2 plot, the vowels were recorded in the plosive-vowel-plosive environment in disyllabic words, and the pattern of sound change from the standard colloquial Nepali and the Magar variety of Nepali is based on the recorded texts from the speakers. The vowels, in this variety, are relatively neutralized than in the standard colloquial Nepali. Laryngealization of the vowels is a common phenomenon and there is a relatively lower pitch in the speech. The plosives and affricates contrast only in three places of articulation. There is a heavy plosive weakening due to spirantization, desperation, and deaf frication. Regular patterns of sound change from the standard colloquial Nepali to Magar Nepali can be well formulated. In comparison, we find that its sound system is highly influenced by the sound system of Magar. The features found in the speech sounds of this variety justify that it is a well-defined distinct ethnic variety of Nepali.

While variation in the southern Peninsular Spanish affricate /tʃ/ has been considered in the context of deaffrication to [ʃ], this study examines an emergent variant [ts] in the context of sociolinguistic identity and style in political speech. Based on a corpus of public speech from Madrid and Andalusia, Spain, this study examines the phonetic and sociolinguistic characteristics of the affricate, finding variation in the quality of the frication portion of the segment through an analysis of segment duration (ms), the center of gravity (Hz), and a categorical identification of realization type. The results suggest that both linguistic variables, like phonetic environment, stress, lexical frequency, and following vowel formant height, as well as extralinguistic variables, like speaker city, gender, political affiliation, and speech context, condition use. Based on these findings, it appears that production of the alveolar affricate [ts] is an incipient sociolinguistic marker in the process of acquiring social meaning. It is particularly associated with female speech and prestige norms that transcend regional identification. This alveolar variant serves as an additional sociolinguistic resource accessible for identity development among politicians and offers insight into ongoing change in the affricate inventory of southern and northern-central Peninsular Spanish.

The current study investigates the effect of gender, age, and English educational background on English loanword adaptation in colloquial Egyptian Arabic (CEA). The phonetic and phonological effects of these social variables are studied with respect to segments, syllables, and voicing exemplified in voice onset time (VOT). The speech sample consists of 120 well-established and online English loanwords collected from 60 native speakers of CEA from Alexandria. The results show that the source sounds are mapped to the closest phonemes. The adaptation of the syllables shows constructions that are not attested in CEA, specifically the complex onsets. Among the participant’s level of English education, age, and gender, only the impact of the English educational background is statistically significant. The results revealed no significant differences in the adaptation of the different age or gender groups. However, observation shows that the adult speakers showed the highest rate of faithful adaptation. Regarding gender, females tend to be more concerned with prestige and thus used more faithful adaptation.

English accents have been under discussion by many researchers. It seems that English native speakers still lack cohesion in terms of phonetic features. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the English accents that varied among England’s national footballers to find out what sounds are practiced and how they are categorized socially. Three of them, namely Harry Kane, Luck Shaw, and Harry Maguire, and their interview videos were used as instruments in this study. The data gained were analyzed qualitatively to elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge. To help analyze and generate the findings, Estuary English, Received Pronunciation, and Cockney accents were also highlighted here in this study. The findings revealed that these three players happened to share a prestige accent, namely Estuary English, which contains RP and Cockney accents. It is confirmed when the three of them share the most common phonetic features, such as t-glottalization and th-glotalization. For the l-vocalization, it was difficult to determine which accent they belonged to because it was not used often. For h-dropting, neither of the speakers used h-dropping. However, it is also found that each player still has a regional accent.

This sociophonetic study delved into the intriguing domain of language fillers, investigating their transformation from mere conversation starters to integral speech habits. Language fillers, often dismissed as mere vocal pauses, were examined through a comprehensive exploration of their sociolinguistic complexities. Employing a multidimensional approach, encompassing phonetic, phonological, and sociocultural perspectives, this research uncovered the multifaceted functions and evolving roles of language fillers in contemporary communication. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, this study not only elucidated the linguistic mechanisms underlying the use of language fillers but also highlighted their sociocontextual variability across diverse speech communities. By shedding light on the intricate interplay between language fillers, sociophonetics, and sociolinguistic norms, this investigation contributed to a deeper understanding of how language fillers shape and reflect individual communication styles and broader linguistic practices.

Abstract This paper aims to explore the use of the tap allophone [ɾ] in Received Pronunciation (RP) in word-internal and linking /r/ contexts over three decades (1940s–1960s) and considering three age cohorts (<35 years old, 35–54 years old, and ≥55 years old). A spoken corpus of formal register materials was compiled to conduct further perceptual and acoustic analysis and classify the articulation of /r/ into tap versus no tap. Results show a decreasing tendency of tap production across decades, and the initial stage of its replacement by the approximant variant. From a sociolinguistic perspective, tapped /r/ may have potentially changed its status, from an indicator to a marker. The fact that the tap allophone has become a sociolinguistic marker can encourage future research on intra-speaker variation. Women and middle-aged speakers (35–54 years old) are the ones leading this sound change, opting for the innovative approximant. This may be due to professional pressures or aspects of social identity, yet further research is needed. Furthermore, the word-internal context seems to favour the production of taps, which could be due to the general low frequency of linking /r/ and the formal register of the materials.

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.

This sociophonetic study examines affricate variation through a continuous lens using diachronic data from Caracas Spanish. We investigate the relationship between frication and occlusion period duration in affricate segments across two steps. First, we present a phonetic characterization of the dependent variable and its variants. Second, we examine the sociolinguistic profile of the variants in an oral corpus of Caracas Spanish. Correlation analyses between the frication period, occlusion period, and overall segment duration suggest that frication lengthening is most prominent, which may mean that affricate variation in Caracas is not necessarily a lenition process, but rather a lengthening one. Through a mixed-effects linear regression model, we determine that frication duration is significantly conditioned by social and linguistic factors in Caracas. Longer frication periods are predicted by following high vowels, corpus year, speaker sex, and in word-initial position. These results suggest that traditional affricate lenition may in some cases point to a process of lengthening and retiming that is both socially and linguistically stratified. This paper contributes to the field by providing an acoustic examination of variable affricate production as well as a diachronic sociolinguistic investigation of this phenomenon in the Spanish of Caracas, Venezuela.

Ce travail exploratoire propose d’étudier le phénomène d’épenthèse en anglais dublinois, et plus particulièrement l’épenthèse du schwa, à travers les productions orales contrôlées (listes de mots) de 65 Dublinoises et Dublinois enregistrés en 2021. Ce travail s’attachera premièrement à définir l’épenthèse du schwa, un phénomène caractéristique de l’anglais irlandais issu du substrat gaélique irlandais dont la structure phonotactique évite l’apparition d’agrégats consonantiques. Ces derniers sont « brisés » par l’insertion d’un schwa. La méthodologie mise en place dans l’analyse de l’épenthèse du schwa sera ensuite détaillée. Il s’agira d’aborder la constitution du corpus, les agrégats consonantiques étudiés en finale de mot (/rl/, /rm/, /rn/), ainsi que les critères perceptifs et acoustiques retenus dans l’identification de l’épenthèse. Les résultats seront présentés en fonction des variables retenues (âge, genre, origine géographique, mobilité) puis discutés. Sur près de 520 environnements, seuls 39 sont réalisés avec une épenthèse, l’agrégat /rl/ s’avérant être le plus propice à l’apparition de l’épenthèse dans le corpus. Cette étude montre que l’épenthèse est davantage présente chez les hommes que chez les femmes au sein de notre corpus. L’âge, l’origine géographique, la mobilité ou encore la maîtrise de l’irlandais ne semblent ainsi pas avoir d’influence sur la fréquence de réalisation de l’épenthèse du schwa en anglais dublinois.

This article follows the variationist framework and the theoretical claims of scholars studying the sociolinguistics of globalization to analyse the use of the Puerto Rican Spanish backed /r/ in Puerto Rico and Holyoke (Massachusetts, USA). An examination of various (socio)linguistic factors enables analysis of potential backed /r/ variation and any discernible differences in its production in both settings under study. Results imply that the Puerto Rican community in Holyoke maintains its language as a means to strengthen its Puerto Rican identity.

A Sociophonetic Study of an Ongoing Sound Change in Stops and Affricates Produced by Jeju Speakers of Korean

Effects of L2 experience on Mandarin listeners’ perception of Korean politeness

Abstract This paper presents the first sociophonetic study of Sanapaná (Enlhet-Enenlhet), spoken by around one thousand people in Paraguay. It examines the effects of L2 (Spanish/Guaraní) fluency and loss of L1 exposure on vowel quality and within-category variability of /e, o/ productions in the Sanapaná /e, a, o/ system. Data from eleven native Sanapaná speakers suggest that age and multilingualism may have little explanatory power by themselves. Speakers living in a majority-L2 environment show greater within-category variability and increased convergence of /e, o/ toward the L2 high vowels /i, u/ than daily users of Sanapaná. This suggests that decreased L1 exposure is the main factor driving language shift-related change in Sanapaná. I explain these findings in an exemplar-theoretic framework. Although the number of speakers sampled is limited, these data provide a valuable addition to our knowledge of sociolinguistic variation in small, underrepresented communities.

Aims and objectives: While previous research has shown that phonetic variation in language contact situations is affected by whether a word has a cognate in the contact language, this paper aims to show that such an effect is not monotonic. According to the usage-based model, items in memory are organized according to similarity, thus we anticipated that formally more similar cognates would show a stronger cognate effect. Methodology: This variationist sociophonetic study investigates the relationship between cognate similarity and phonetic realization. We examined this relationship in the bilingual community of Rivera, Uruguay, in which both Portuguese and Spanish are spoken with regularity. Specifically, we focused on intervocalic /d/, which in monolingual Spanish is realized as an approximant [ð̞] or phonetic zero, but in monolingual Brazilian Portuguese is produced as a stop [d] or, in most varieties, an affricate [ʤ] before [i]. Data and analysis: We analyzed a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews of the Spanish spoken in Rivera. Acoustic measurements were taken from approximately 60 tokens each from 40 different speakers. Using a linear mixed-effects model, we examined the relationship between several predictors and the degree of constriction of intervocalic /d/. Findings/conclusions: While there is an overall frequency effect whereby more frequent words exhibit less constriction of intervocalic /d/, as both frequency and cognate similarity increase, less constriction of intervocalic /d/ obtains. Therefore, frequent cognates in Portuguese that have very similar forms affect the production of intervocalic /d/ more so than other cognates. Originality: No previous study has demonstrated that the cognate effect on phonetic variation in a situation of language contact is regulated by form similarity between cognate pairs. Significance/implications: The data support the usage-based model in that similar cognates have more lexical connections and can therefore show greater influence on phonetic realization than can cognates that share less phonetic material.