Variability in cross-language and cross-dialect perception. How Irish and Chinese migrants process Australian English vowels.

We investigate how three adult groups - experienced L2 English listeners; experienced D2 (second dialect) listeners; and native L1/D1 listeners - categorise Australian English (AusE) lax front vowels /ɪ e æ/ in /hVt/, /hVl/ and /mVl/ environments in a forced-choice categorisation task of synthesised continua. In study 1, AusE listeners show predictable categorisations, with an effect of coarticulation raising the vowel in perception for nasal onset stimuli, and a following lateral lowering the vowel in perception. In study 2, Irish (D2) and Chinese listeners (L2) have different categorisations than AusE listeners, likely guided by their D1/L1.

Sociophonetic Variation in Vowel Categorization of Australian English.

This study involves a perceptual categorization task for Australian English, designed to investigate regional and social variation in category boundaries between close-front vowel contrasts. Data are from four locations in southeast Australia. A total of 81 listeners from two listener groups took part: (a) so-called mainstream Australian English listeners from all four locations, and (b) L1 Aboriginal English listeners from one of the locations.

Voice quality in Australian English.

This study is an acoustic investigation of voice quality in Australian English. The speech of 33 Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal English speakers) is compared to that of 28 Anglo Australians [Mainstream Australian English (MAE) speakers] from two rural locations in Victoria. Analysis of F0 and H1*-H2* reveals that pitch and voice quality differ significantly for male speakers according to dialect and for female speakers according to location.