Variability in vowel categorisation behaviour amongst three diverse listener groups in Victoria, Australia

Rapid diachronic change in the lax front vowel system of Australian English (Cox & Palethorpe 2008) means there is extreme variability in the input listeners receive. Despite such variability and its potential to highlight sociophonetic differences amongst listeners (e.g. Drager 2010) there has been relatively little research into what Australian English listeners do when making vowel categorisation judgements. Research shows, however, that experience in input influences processing behaviour – see Mannell (2008), Cox & Palethorpe (2014), Loakes et al. (2014), Williams et al. (2018) and Diskin, Loakes & Clothier (forthcoming).

The aim of the current study is to investigate vowel categorisation behaviour amongst "non-mainstream" Australian English speaking communities in Victoria, Australia. The communities are two L1 Aboriginal English listener groups, one from Warrnambool (n=22) and one from Mildura (n=23) which are 528 kms apart by road. A group of L1 Italo-Australian English listeners in Melbourne also took part (Australian born, with parents born in Italy, n = 20). Listeners responded to a forcedchoice vowel categorisation task; they heard /ɪ-e/ /e-æ/ contrasts, with 7 step stimuli, in various phonetic conditions. There were 196 trials per listener.

We found both regional and social variability amongst the listener groups. L1 Aboriginal English listeners from Mildura and Warrnambool behave remarkably similarly when it comes to categorising lax front vowels, but display regional variability when faced with /el/-/æl/. The Warrnambool listeners have a fully entrenched merger in perception, and Mildura listeners clearly distinguish the vowels. This geographical north-south divide also exists for the mainstream Australian English community (Loakes et al. 2014, 2017) but manifests slightly differently. We also found that, compared to the Aboriginal English listeners, the Italo-Australian group have different (later) category crossovers.

This study ultimately shows previously unreported regional variability amongst L1 Aboriginal Englishes, and also highlights variety-specific patterns of listening behaviour between the Aboriginal and Italo-Australian groups.

References

Cox, F. and S. Palethorpe (2008) Reversal of Short Front Vowel Raising in Australian English. In J. Fletcher, D. Loakes, R. Göcke, D. Burnham and M. Wagner (eds.) Proceedings of Interspeech 2008 incorporating ASSTA 2008. Bonn: ISCA, 342- 345.

Cox, F. and S. Palethorpe. (2014). Phonologisation of vowel duration and nasalised /æ/ in Australian English. In J. Hay & E. Parnell (Eds.), Proceedings of the 15th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology Sydney: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Assoc. 33-36.

Diskin, C., D. Loakes and J. Clothier (forthcoming). Varietal differences in categorisation of /ɪ e æ/. A case study of Irish and Australian English listeners in Melbourne. Proceedings of SST2018. Sydney, Australia.

Drager, K. (2010). Sociophonetic variation in speech perception. Language & Linguistic Compass Vol. 4: pp. 473–480.

Loakes, D., J. Hajek, J. Clothier and J. Fletcher (2014) Identifying /el/-/æl/: a comparison between two regional Australian towns. In J. Hay and E. Parnell (Eds.) Proceedings of the 15th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Canterbury: ASSTA, pp.41-44

Loakes, D., J. Hajek and J. Fletcher (2017). Can you t[æ]ll I’m from M[æ]lbourne? An overview of the DRESS and TRAP vowels before /l/ as a regional accent marker in Australian English. English Worldwide. Vol. 38 (1), pp.29-49.

Mannell, R. (2004) Perceptual vowel space for Australian English lax vowels: 1998 and 2004. In S. Cassidy, F. Cox, R. Mannell and S. Palethorpe (eds.). Proceedings of 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Sydney, Australia. 221-226.

Williams, D., P. Escudero, and A. I. Gafos. (2018). Perceptual sensitivity to spectral change in Australian English close front vowels : an electroencephalographic investigation. Proceedings of INTERSPEECH 2018, 2-6 September 2018, Hyderabad, India, pp. 1442-1446.