Rhoticity in Southern New Zealand English
-
Marco Schilk
Abstract
Though generally considered a non-rhotic variety, New Zealand English (NZE) shows some variation in terms of rhotic vowel colouring, mainly observed in southern New Zealand speakers. The current study uses an acoustic approach to a new audio-visual database, the UC Canterbury QuakeBox (Walsh et al. 2013) to account for variation in the degree of rhotic vowel colouring in southern NZE speakers. Identifying all nurse vowels in the data of eight representative speakers with interview transcripts, auditory perception, and a Praat-based acoustic analysis, rhotic vowel colouring is subsequently rated based on third formant (F3) realization. Results show that southern speakers display rhotic vowel colouring to varying degrees. A mixed-effects model and qualitative interpretation of key speakers further suggest an age-based cline of rhoticity with younger speakers converging on the non-rhotic standard, indicating that this rhotic vowel colouring in Southern speakers may be due to resistance to dialect levelling rather than ongoing differentiation.
Abstract
Though generally considered a non-rhotic variety, New Zealand English (NZE) shows some variation in terms of rhotic vowel colouring, mainly observed in southern New Zealand speakers. The current study uses an acoustic approach to a new audio-visual database, the UC Canterbury QuakeBox (Walsh et al. 2013) to account for variation in the degree of rhotic vowel colouring in southern NZE speakers. Identifying all nurse vowels in the data of eight representative speakers with interview transcripts, auditory perception, and a Praat-based acoustic analysis, rhotic vowel colouring is subsequently rated based on third formant (F3) realization. Results show that southern speakers display rhotic vowel colouring to varying degrees. A mixed-effects model and qualitative interpretation of key speakers further suggest an age-based cline of rhoticity with younger speakers converging on the non-rhotic standard, indicating that this rhotic vowel colouring in Southern speakers may be due to resistance to dialect levelling rather than ongoing differentiation.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
New perspectives
- Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle 9
- Diachronic learner corpus research 41
- Rhoticity in Southern New Zealand English 69
-
Revisiting old debates
- “I’m putting some salt in my sandwich”. 93
- Determinants of exaptation in Verb-Object predicates in the transition from Late Middle English to Early Modern English 133
- Recent changes in spoken British English in verbal and nominal constructions 173
- “Oh yeah, one more thing: It’s gonna be huge.” 197
-
Refinements & innovations
- Retrieving Twitter argumentation with corpus queries and discourse analysis 229
- MuPDAR for corpus-based learner and variety studies 257
- A data-driven approach to finding significant changes in language use through time series analysis 285
- Index 319
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
New perspectives
- Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle 9
- Diachronic learner corpus research 41
- Rhoticity in Southern New Zealand English 69
-
Revisiting old debates
- “I’m putting some salt in my sandwich”. 93
- Determinants of exaptation in Verb-Object predicates in the transition from Late Middle English to Early Modern English 133
- Recent changes in spoken British English in verbal and nominal constructions 173
- “Oh yeah, one more thing: It’s gonna be huge.” 197
-
Refinements & innovations
- Retrieving Twitter argumentation with corpus queries and discourse analysis 229
- MuPDAR for corpus-based learner and variety studies 257
- A data-driven approach to finding significant changes in language use through time series analysis 285
- Index 319
