Acoustic Analysis of the Socio-phonetic Variation in the English Language Long Vowels

Abstract

The present study investigates the variation in the long English vowels among native English speakers and non-native Pakistani speakers of the English language. The recordings have been collected through e-mail from different regional speakers of Pakistani languages, from U.K. and the U.S., using social-networking. The analysis of the recordings is done using PRAAT software. The long vowel /i:/ was delimited for the study. Durations quoted by the renowned phonetician Danial Jones (1976), were used as a reference for the native speakers of the English language. The initial hypotheses were built to analyze the data. The study reveals that native speakers tend to follow the pattern introduced by Danial Jones with just a slight idiolectal difference. The non-native Pakistani speakers differentiate themselves in the duration of long vowels from the native speakers. Female native speakers have shown significant variation when compared with male native speakers.