Abstract
This paper examines changes in the perception of Australian English lax vowels between 1988 and 2004. In each of the years 1988 and 2004, 20 phonetically-trained native speakers of Australian English were presented with 224 different randomised, synthesised hVd tokens. The vowels differed according to their F1 and F2 values (all possible multiples of 100 Hz within a designated "male" vowel space). Half the vowels were "long" vowels (300 ms) and the other half were "short" vowels (150 ms). Subjects were given a forced-choice closed set task. They were told to concentrate on the vowel in each token and to label it with the symbol for the closest Australian English vowel phoneme. The responses for the "short" vowel plane were then plotted on a vowel perceptual contour map in F1/F2 formant space. Visual examination of the two resulting maps revealed apparent changes in the perceptual boundaries between all adjacent pairs of lax vowels. χ² analysis of 1988 versus 2004 responses for each vowel at each data point on the vowel space revealed significant changes in perceptual patterns at the perceptual boundaries between four pairs of adjacent vowels (/ɪ/ and /e/, /e/ and /æ/, /æ/ and /ʌ/, /ɒ/ and /ʊ/). Both an independent samples t-test and a MANOVA test examined the pattern of subject response means for each vowel and showed a significant change in the mean response between 1988 and 2004 for /æ/, /ʌ/ and /ɒ/.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 10th Australian international conference on speech science and technology |
Editors | Steve Cassidy, Felicity Cox, Rober Mannell, Sallyanne Palethorpe |
Place of Publication | Canberra |
Publisher | Australian Speech Science and Technology Association |
Pages | 221-226 |
Number of pages | 6 |
ISBN (Print) | 0958194610 |
Publication status | Published - 2004 |
Event | Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (10th : 2004) - Sydney Duration: 8 Dec 2004 → 10 Dec 2004 |
Conference
Conference | Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (10th : 2004) |
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City | Sydney |
Period | 8/12/04 → 10/12/04 |