Ethnic Dialect Identification in New Zealand - The Role of Prosodic Cues

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This book investigates the production and perception of suprasegmental features, such as rhythm and intonation, of the two main ethnic dialects of New Zealand English. Maori English is spoken by the indigenous population, while Pakeha English is used mainly by speakers of European descent. In a production experiment the speech of New Zealanders is acoustically analysed to confirm previous findings of how Maori English is distinguished from Pakeha English in terms of rhythm and intonation. A perception experiment examines listeners interpretations of resynthesised speech samples as either Maori or Pakeha. The findings provide strong confirmation of the role of rhythm and intonation in marking the distinction between Maori and Pakeha English. The perceptual relevance of other prosodic cues is also discussed in terms of stereotypes associated with minority groups. The results also show that the linguistic experience of the listener is a key indicator of performance in ethnic dialect identification. The book will appeal to scholars and students interested in New Zealand English, sociophonetics and language change, as well as speech perception and production.