Variation in FACE and FLEECE trajectories in Australian English adolescents according to community language diversity

Australia is an increasingly multicultural society with high levels of linguistic diversity found within its larger cities. Nevertheless, research on Australian English is often based on an Anglo-centric, monolingual model. In this paper, we explore variation in the production of FACE and FLEECE vowels produced by adolescent speakers from areas of Sydney that differ in their level of language diversity and the dominant non-English languages spoken within them. A dynamic vowel formant analysis demonstrates that speakers from more linguistically diverse areas produce a raised first element of FACE and less onglide of FLEECE, compared with speakers from a less linguistically diverse area, whose production of these vowels more closely resembles previous descriptions of ‘mainstream’ Australian English. Productions from the linguistically diverse areas pattern similarly, indicating the changes are not direct transfer effects.