Phonetic and Phonological Variation in Vowel Discrimination Performance : Effect of Swedish Vowel Categories and Dialects

• Acoustic discrimination of speech sounds is affected by various factors, ranging from more universal acoustic properties of categories to the phoneme systems of the native language and dialect, and even influences from languages learned later in life. A discrimination experiment containing East Central Swedish vowels was carried out with 30 native Swedish listeners in order to explore the variation in vowel discrimination performance. Both phonetic and phonological variables have been found to have an effect on discrimination performance. Peripheral location of vowels in the F1/F2 vowel space was found to increase the discrimination performance. South Swedish dialectal area was associated with a decreased discrimination performance. Continuous exposure to foreign languages otherthan English was not a significant factor.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

kon (subject category)

vet (subject category)