Discrimination of Quebec French

dialectal markers

Annie Brasseur and

Lucie Ménard

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Dialectal marker

informations about the place of origin of a speakerused by the entire linguistic community in all

situations of communication (i.e. not stratified)no negative judgement (i.e. not marked)

Markers Informations

biological age, gender, physical condition

psychological personality, emotional state

social place of origin, social class, level of education

Laver et Trudgill (1979)

From the 44 phenomena identified as typical of Quebec French in descriptive studies1

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examples FF QF

Affrication : /t/ , /d/ « petit » [pəti] [pətsi]Laxing : /i/, /y/, /u/ « caniche » [kaniʃ] [kanɪʃ]Posteriorization : /a/

« soldat » [sɔlda] [sɔldɑ]

Anteriorization : /ɑ/ « méchant » [meʃɑ] [meʃa]Closing : /ɛ/ « chemin » [ʃəmɛ] [ʃəme]

1see PHONO, Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur les activités langagières (CIRAL)

Experiment 1 : Objectives

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Evaluate the perceptual weight of phonetic features considered typical of Quebec French

Determine : if the perception of accent markers is possible in nonword; whether a combination of features facilitate the perception

of the Quebecois accent; if some features allow better recognition of Quebec accent; the effect of the position on perception.

Matched-guise technique

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Target stimuli carrier-sentence in FF QF features inserted to measure the effect on the

perception

Distractors in QF and in FF to make sure the participants recognize the two varieties of

French to distract the participants from the target speaker and

from the task Target stimuli Distractors

Speakers origin: FF QF FF

Production : FF QF QF FF

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Carrier-sentence : « Le X1 est X2 »

LIN9985 Séminaire

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Manipulation : 1 neutral word, 1 target word

UQAM, mars 2012

LIN9985 Séminaire

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Manipulation : 2 target words

UQAM, mars 2012

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Perception test

4 choicesParticipants

41 participants (34 women, 7 men)

age min : 20 max : 50

from academia (students of 1st, 2nd and 3rd

cycles) native speaker of Quebec

French no known hearing

problem

Answer Value

I’m sure he is from Quebec 4

I’m not sure, but I think he is from Quebec

3

I’m not sure, but I think he is from France

2

I’m sure he is from France 1

Effect of Quebec French features on the perception of origin(mean scores and standard deviations)

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(I Y U) et ( T D) > (A) > (AN) et (IN)

Me

an

sco

res

Perceptual ranking of Quebec French dialectal markers

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1. LaxingI U > Y

2. Affrication D >TPosteriorization /a/Anteriorization /ɑ/

3. Closing /ɛ/

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French high vowels variation

CVC, final, accent = lax allophone mandatory

Except CVC, closed by voiced fricative [ʁ v z ʒ] Laxing possible (regional varieties) Lenghtening

In other contexts (i.e. non-final, unaccentuated, CV) Laxing is optional Devoicing, deletion, diphthongization, harmonization

CVC FF QF

« mille » [mil] [mɪl]« bûche » [byʃ] [bʏʃ]« coude » [kud] [kʊd]

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Why variants of the same category have different perceptual relevance?

/i/ : F1 F2

/y/ : F1 F2

/u/ : F1 F2

F2

F1

Focalization

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/i/ F3-F4 convergence

/y/ F2-F3 convergence

/i/ and /y/: F1 F2

Experiment 2 : Objective

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The objective is to determine whether the perceptual weight of [ɪ], greater than that of [ʏ], is due to acoustic properties related to general auditory abilities, in which case, its properties are more robust, and therefore easier to perceive in noise.

We will observe the ability to discriminate the tense-lax contrast of vowels /i/ and /y/ by Quebec French speakers.

Discrimination test

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AXBDiscrimination of /i/

31 Quebec French native speakersDiscrimination of /y/

31 Quebec French native speakers

FF QF

« rapide » [ʁapid] [ʁapɪd]« perruque » [peʁyk] [peʁʏk]

Discrimination test

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Speech noiseWord

intensity (dB)

Speech noise

intensity (dB)

SNR

70

--- x

70 0

73 3

76 6

79 9

82 12

85 15

88 18

91 21

AXB Task

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2 lax /i/answer is A : [ʁapɪd] [ʁapɪd] [ʁapid] answer is B : [ʁapid] [ʁapɪd] [ʁapɪd]

2 tense /i/answer is A : [ʁapid] [ʁapid] [ʁapɪd]answer is B : [ʁapɪd] [ʁapid] [ʁapid]

x 6 repetitionsx 9 levels of SNR

A X B

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Discrimination of tenseness contrast: /i/ vs. /y/

Q F sp e a ke rs

/i / /y/

V o we l s

4 0

4 5

5 0

5 5

6 0

6 5

7 0

7 5

8 0

8 5

9 0

9 5

1 0 0

Dis

crim

ina

tion

sco

re *

Discrimination of tenseness contrast: /i/ vs. /y/

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/ i / vs. /y/

x 0 d B 3 d B 6 d B 9 d B 1 2 d B 1 5 d B 1 8 d B 2 1 d B

S NR

4 0

5 0

6 0

7 0

8 0

9 0

1 0 0

Dis

crim

ina

tion

sco

re

/ i / /y/

*

*

*

*

*

Conclusions

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The perceptual relevance of [I] in the recognition of QF accent by speakers of Quebec French is not due to acoustic properties, since the discrimination of /y/ in noise is easier than the discrimination of /i/ in noise for these speakers.

It seems that the value placed on laxing as a dialectal marker derived from a phonetic treatment of speech signal rather than a low-level auditory processing.

Thank you!