Dutch diphthong and long vowel realizations as socio-economic markers

To judge the influence of speaker background on the quality of five long vowels and diphthongs /oU/, /eI/, /Au/, /EI/, and /2y/ in Standard Dutch, the spectra of these vowel realizations in spontaneous speech were measured for 70 subjects, and analyzed with regard to the subjects’ regions of education and residence, their level of education and occupation, as well as their sex and age. Our preliminary analyses indicated that high educated speakers lowered (higher F1, articulated more open) the long vowels and diphthongs and diphthongized them stronger than low educated speakers. There seemed t... Mehr ...