Acoustic Contributions to Sociolinguistics: Devoicing of /v/ and /z/ in Dutch

TL;DRAbstract

This paper has a threefold aim. First, we want to evaluate whether acoustic techniques are applicable to quantitative sociolinguistic studies of consonantal variation. Until now, sociolinguists have mainly used acoustic techniques for the study of vowels (Thomas 2002, Foulkes 2002). Second, we want to develop acoustic measurements that uncover the core voice characteristics of the Dutch alveolar and labial fricatives. Third, we want to gain more insight into the devoicing of /v/ and /z/ in standard Dutch. Van de Velde, Gerritsen and Van Hout (1996) showed in a real-time study that devoicing of /v/ and /z/ is a change in progress in northern standard Dutch (as spoken by broadcasters in the Netherlands) between 1935 and 1993. In southern standard Dutch (as spoken by broadcasters in Flanders) weak devoicing of /v/ and /z/ wassurprisingly--observed in the speech of the 1990's. In a study of regional variation in contemporary standard Dutch pronunciation, Van de Vel de and Van Hout (200 I)

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