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The /e/-/æ/ Merger in the Speech of Dutch

Migrants in Australia

Melody Pattison

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of

Applied Linguistics

School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics

Monash University

June 2013

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Declaration

I declare that this research project contains no material that has been accepted for the award

of any degree at any University. To the best of my knowledge, this research project does not

contain any material that has previously been published or written by any other person,

except where due reference has been given within the text.

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The /e/-/æ/ Merger in the Speech of Dutch Migrants in Australia

Abstract

This study investigates the appearance of the /e/-/æ/ merger in the speech of Dutch migrants

to Australia. There have been few studies on the overall appearance of this merger in Australia, which

manifests as /æ/ neutralisation. Research for this study was carried out by obtaining voice samples of

Australian (N=9) and Dutch (N=16) participants, who read English words from a list that included

minimal pairs with pronunciations corresponding to the /e/ and /æ/ phonemes evident in Australian

English. Recordings were then analysed in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013) to determine vowel

position. The phoneme /æ/ is generally not used in the Dutch language, and the results showed that

there is little realisation of /æ/ in the Dutch participants’ speech. This study found that neutralisation

has been occurring in the speech of Dutch migrants, but it corresponds to more retracted allophones of

/æ/. The most significant results were the neutralisations around the phonetic values1 for /ɛ/ and /a/,

and the fact that the Dutch speakers have tended to front the /ɑ/ vowel of Standard Dutch to /a/.

Taking into account the specifications of Standard Dutch and the various dialects present in this study,

the results have shown that speech accommodation amongst Dutch migrants may be happening at a

more abstract level with phonetic consequences different to that of Australian English. Therefore, the

Dutch participants’ speech has likely been influenced by Australian English, but the phonetic

realisations of this are quite different to the original influence.

1 The term “phonetic value” refers to the target area within the vowel space corresponding to a particular

phoneme

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge and thank my supervisor, Dr. Simon Musgrave for all of his

support and advice given throughout this project.

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CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures 6

Introduction 7

Background 9

The Dialects of Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland and Utrecht 14

The Dialect of Limburg 14

The Dialect of Noord-Brabant 14

The Dialect of Groningen 15

The Dialects of Gelderland and Overijssel 15

Hypothesis 16

Methodology 17

Results and Discussion 21

Vowel Position in Australian and Dutch Speech 21

Prelateral Neutralisation 28

The Rhotic Consonant 32

The /ɛ/ Neutralisation 34

Fronting of /ɑ/ 34

Migrating Before Age 12 36

Limitations 37

Summary 38

Conclusion 39

References 41

Appendices 46

Appendix 1 46

Appendix 2 49

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The /e/-/æ/ Merger in the Speech of Dutch Migrants in Australia

List of Tables and Figures

Figure 1: Dutch Vowel Space

Figure 2: Map of The Netherlands

Table 1: Major Dutch Dialects

Table 2: Dutch Participants

Figure 3: Female Australian English Speakers

Figure 4: Male Australian English Speakers

Figure 5: Female Dutch Speakers

Figure 6: Male Dutch Speakers

Figure 7: Average Vowel Positions for All Speakers

Figure 8: Participant D7’s Vowel Plot

Figure 9: Dutch Female Vowel Position

Figure 10: Dutch Male Vowel Position

Figure 11: D1 pronunciation of “shall”

Figure 12: D6 pronunciation of “shall”

Figure 13: D12 pronunciation of “Alan”

Figure 14: D12 pronunciation of “Barry”

Figure 15: Participant D2’s Vowel Plot

Notes

1. I am able to provide original data on formant values if required.

2. Any translations from the Dutch language have been my own work.

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The /e/-/æ/ Merger in the Speech of Dutch Migrants in Australia

Introduction

The neutralisation of the phonemes /æ/ and /e/ is a phenomenon that has been seen in the speech

of Australian English speakers residing in the state of Victoria, particularly in Melbourne. The loss of

contrast between /æ/ and /e/ results in some speakers pronouncing the independent sounds both as /æ/.

Research into this area has so far been limited, and has strongly focused on the sounds as prelateral

vowels, however this study will examine the identified issues related to this vowel shift, and explore

the extent of its appearance in the speech of Dutch migrants to Melbourne. The Dutch language itself

is historically a close relation to the English language, stemming from the Proto-Germanic branch of

the Indo-European family of languages (Trask & Millar, 2007), although the sound systems in each

language are vastly different.

Australia is a country that is relatively homogenous in its variety of English (Wells, 1982),

although studies have shown that there may be certain regional differences (cf. Bradley, 1989; Cox &

Palethorpe, 2004; Loakes, 2008) Short front vowels in Melbourne may tend to be lower than

elsewhere in Australia (Loakes, Hajek & Fletcher, 2010), which could account for the appearance of

the /e/-/æ/ merger in that region. I would also note that, opposed to the more common Australian

pronunciation of the close-mid /e/, there may be a trend towards using the open-mid /ɛ/ in those more

inclined towards the Cultivated variety of Australian English with its British Received Pronunciation

origins (Canepari, 2005; Cox, 2012). /ɛ/ sits closer to the pronunciation of /æ/, which suggests there

may be a gradual vowel shift in progress. Similarly, the near-open /æ/ may be used interchangeably

with the open /a/ in this variety of English, which also may result in a shift among some speakers

whose speech is closer to the prestige variety of Australian English. Yet, in a study by Bradley (1989),

it was observed that the merger was more common in informal speech and lower socio-economic

groups. Therefore, considering this conflicting evidence, the reasons for this phenomenon may not be

attributed to sociolinguistic patterns at all, unless the shift is occurring due to misperceptions on the

behalf of the listener, as has been explored by Harrington, Kleber and Reubold (2008) and Loakes,

Hajek and Fletcher (2010).

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Labov (1991) asserted that “chain shifts are evidence of the tendency of sound systems to

preserve their primary function of identifying meaningful units, and mergers are evidence that some

other force powerful enough must be at work” (p.28). This relates to the /e/-/æ/ merger in Australian

English, and the social causes and implications of it. Harrington, Kleber and Reubold (2008) suggest

that the shift may occur because of listener perception, a theory followed by a study by Loakes, Hajek

and Fletcher (2010). A listener may, for example, mishear the pronunciation of /ɛ/ as /æ/, and then

continue to pronounce words that ordinarily have a General Australian English pronunciation of /e/, as

/æ/. This may be due to hypercorrection, where the sound is overstressed to the point where it no

longer resembles the original sound. The continuation of these misperceptions is often a result of the

listener failing to correct the pronunciation, which in turn affects their own speech through the process

of convergence, and the sound change continues (Ohala in Loakes, Hajek & Fletcher, 2010).

Loakes, Hajek and Fletcher (2010) and Cox and Palethorpe (2004) have suggested that it is

common for the neutralisation to occur before the lateral approximant /l/, especially when /l/ is

velarised to [ɫ]. This [ɫ] is sometimes referred to as the Dark /l/, and is an allophone of the basic

phoneme /l/, most often realised in the syllable coda position, as opposed to the syllable onset position

(Cox, 2012). Prelateral vowels often highlight differences in pronunciation, due to the velarised nature

of [ɫ] leading to a sound change in its preceding vowels, which tend to become lower (Labov, 1994;

Loakes, Hajek & Fletcher, 2010).

As the daughter of a Dutch migrant to Australia, I have been interested in how, if at all, the

/e/-/æ/ merger is evident in the speech of Dutch migrants, which will in turn contribute to discovering

if the merger is seen in the speech of native Australian speakers only. Australian studies in this area

have so far focused solely on the merger’s appearance in Australian-English speakers, which does not

tell us if it is simply a phenomenon related to the Australian English phonology, or if there is a

widespread, broader shift occurring within other dialects of Melbourne communities.

The Dutch language is interesting in this respect, due to the use of the phoneme /ɛ/, the

occasional and infrequent /e/, and the general absence of the phoneme /æ/ (Booij, 1999). The closest

phoneme to this is in fact /a/ (which appears as the long vowel /a:/) or /ɑ/, which is where an

Australian English speaker may pronounce /æ/. In Standard Dutch, the phoneme /a:/ is generally used

in word final positions or where the following consonant is voiceless, and so is seen in words such as

“ja” (yes) (Collins & Mees, 2003). It is also used when two orthographic ‘a’s appear together, and so

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Dutch words such as “naar” (to) as also pronounced with /a:/. This is despite the fact that /r/ in word

final positions in Dutch may be voiced or devoiced; speakers of Dutch who usually use the alveolar /r/

may exhibit a tap [ɾ] in this position (Collins & Mees, 2003). Contrastively, /ɑ/ is always used

preceding a voiced consonant, or is seen in words such as “dat” (that) when only one orthographic ‘a’

is present. It is not found in a word-final position (Collins & Mees, 1982). Of course, the Dutch

participants do not all speak Standard Dutch as their vernacular, and regional dialects are plentiful in

The Netherlands. Therefore, each participant’s dialectal background has been considered in each of

their individual cases, and contrasted against Standard Dutch. However, it is to be expected that the

vowel sounds of the regional dialect more closely resemble those of Standard Dutch than of

Australian English, which would still make the /e/-/æ/ merger, if detected, potentially significant. This

is because its appearance would suggest rather substantial phonological changes in the speech of the

Dutch migrants.

Background

There are sixteen vowels of Dutch, which are classified as being either short (/ɪ/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /ʏ/,

/ɑ/), long (/i/, /y/, /u/, /e/, /ø/, /o/, /a/), diphthongs (/ɛi/, /œy/, /ɔu/) or a schwa (/ə/) (Booij, 1995). The

main vowels that are relevant to this study are /ɑ/ and /ɛ/ as they have the most correspondence to the

/æ/ and /e/ of Australian English. A diagram of the Dutch vowel space can be seen below:

Figure 1: Dutch Vowel Space (Booij, 1995, p.5)

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I have so far focussed mainly on the vowels of Dutch, and how they differ from those seen in

Australian English, but one particular Dutch consonant should be examined as well, as it is relevant to

the study. The Dutch /r/ is often different to the /r/ of Australian English, and Dutch regional varieties

can also differ markedly from each other. /r/ in Dutch can be alveolar, uvular or pre-velar (Collins &

Mees, 2003; Booij, 1995), and its realisation often depends on speaker differences (a particular

phenomenon related to the Gronings /r/ will be discussed later) or its position in a word. These are all

allophonic variations. Originally, the Dutch /r/ may have been recognised as an alveolar phoneme,

with a later acceptance of its place of articulation being uvular in some circumstances (Smakman,

2006).

Uvular realisations of /r/ include the roll [ʀ], and the fricative or approximant [ʁ]. In the

alveolar position, /r/ is usually realised with the alveolar flap [ɾ] or roll [r] (Collins & Mees, 2003;

Booij, 1995; Smakman, 2006). In Australian English, /r/ is realised as the alveolar approximant [ɹ],

and, unlike in Dutch, is not found in the syllable coda position. Although the pronunciation of /r/ as [ɹ]

is apparent in some varieties of Dutch, uvular articulations seem to be more common nowadays,

especially in the Randstad area, comprising the provinces of Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Flevoland

and Utrecht (Collins & Mees, 2003; Daan, 1999; Taeldeman, 2010). Despite this, alveolar realisations

of /r/ are more commonly deemed to be correct, even though both uvular and alveolar /r/ can be found

in Standard Dutch (Smakman, 2006).

This study has so far focused on the specifications of Standard Dutch, with some discussion on

the differing realisations of /r/ in the language. However, the Dutch speakers in this study came to

Australia from various regions in The Netherlands, and migrated at different stages in their lives. By

analysing their individual cases, their background can then accurately be compared with their

phonology, in order to determine whether their original dialects are more, or less, susceptible to the

/e/-/æ/ merger. For a small country, The Netherlands is home to a variety of differing dialects that are

on occasion unintelligible to each other. It is the phonological differences, rather than the lexical

differences, that are the focus here for this study.

There is a distinction between the Dutch of the North and South, and East and West,

characterised by some different vowel sounds, yet the dialects within the North, South, East and West

Netherlandic provinces exhibit a degree of variance. Van Hout and Munsterman in Goeman (2002)

isolated the geographical location halfway between The Hague and Utrecht as the position of the

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Southern Standard dialect of Dutch. It follows then that the further one is from this position, the more

their language will deviate from the standard, as Goeman (2002) found in his study of the south-

western dialects, and which has also been supported by Wieling, Nerbonne and Baayen (2011). Thus,

the area of the Achterhoek bordering Germany in the eastern part of The Netherlands exhibits a

variant of the language that differs considerably in its phonology from the dialects of the west (Zwart,

2011). Additionally, the Limburgish dialect spoken in the south-east is characterised by Zwart (2011)

as being very close to High German. But to contrast, the town of Haarlem, in the province of Noord-

Holland, is characterised by an Achterhoek Dutch speaker as “where they speak the best Dutch”

(personal communication, 2012). This may be folk linguistics, widely believed by residents of The

Netherlands, but it is also possible that the original source for this information came from Johan

Winkler, who in 1874 stated that “the present dialect of the city Haarlem is undoubtedly closer to the

current Dutch language than any other dialect of Holland and therefore all of the Netherlands”

(Winkler in Daan, 1999, p.10). Haarlem sits west of Amsterdam, north-east of The Hague, and north-

west of Utrecht, thereby placing it within relatively close range of the geographical position located

by Van Hout and Munsterman (Goeman, 2002), as the exemplar of Northern Standard Dutch. This is a

view that is supported by Smakman and Van Bezooijen (1997) in the context of Haarlem Dutch being

closest to the standard, although Daan (1999) cautions that the speech of this area should not be

viewed as superior to regional dialects - linguistically, no language or dialect is superior to another; it

is social perceptions that perpetuate the beliefs that they are. Therefore, whilst it is true that Haarlem

Dutch is phonetically most similar to Standard Dutch, that it is somehow better than other dialects is a

misconception. Perhaps, though, this misconception offers partial explanation as to why Dutch

dialects are beginning to converge back to the standard variety (Wieling, Nerbonne & Baayen, 2011).

Yet this study is concerned with the individual speech of each participant, and to which region

their original Dutch dialect belongs. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces, each with its own

dialect in which there can be some regional variation:

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Figure 2: Map of The Netherlands (Dalet, 2013)

The table below lists the major dialects of The Netherlands, and the province where they are

spoken, compiled from information from Daan and Blok (1969), Pauwels (1982) and Zwart (2011).

This table is intended as a guide only, as Daan (1999) and Rensink (1999) note that dialectal

differences do not correspond perfectly with provincial boundaries, and isoglosses are not evenly

distributed.

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Table 1: Major Dutch Dialects (Daan & Blok, 1969; Pauwels, 1982; Zwart, 2011)

Low-Franconian

(South, West, Central)

Low-Saxon

(North-East)

Rhine-Franconian

(South-East)

Dialect Province Dialect Province Dialect Province

Brabantish Noord-

Brabant

Gronings Groningen Limburgish Limburg

East Flemish Zeeland Drents Drenthe

West Flemish Zeeland Achterhoeks Gelderland

Westfries Noord-

Holland

Twents Overijssel

Zeeuws Zeeland Veluws Gelderland

Hollands-

Utrechts*

Noord-

Holland,

Flevoland,

Zuid-Holland,

Utrecht

Sallands Overijssel

Stellingwerfs Friesland

*closest to, and including, Standard Dutch

Standardisation in Dutch probably began during the Middle Dutch era, when written texts

began to appear, and the division of the language was into Vlaams (Flemish), Brabants, Hollands and

Limburgs (Smakman, 2006). Low-Saxon varieties of Dutch were also in existence, but played little

part in the language’s standardisation (Smakman, 2006), with the Hollandic varieties contributing the

most influence (Van Bree, 1997). Today, the Standard version of Dutch is sometimes, controversially,

known as Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (Donaldson, 1983; Smakman, 2006), which translates into

General Civilised Dutch – hence the controversy surrounded the name. But while there may now be

an accepted standard form of the language, The Netherlands is also divided by many more dialectal

boundaries, of which only the major ones were mentioned above. Even within these dialects, there is

also a degree of variation.

The participants in this study were originally from the provinces of Noord-Brabant, Noord-

Holland, Zuid-Holland, Utrecht, Groningen, Overijssel, Gelderland and Limburg. The next section

will provide a brief overview of distinguishing features of these differing varieties of Dutch, paying

particular attention to the vowels in order to more accurately understand and explain the data that

eventuates from this study. While the language construction (including morphology, syntax and lexis)

can differ across the dialects (Van Bree, 1997; Wurmbrand, 2004), the following descriptions will

focus on phonological aspects, concerned mainly with the variants used in place of the Dutch vowels

/ɛ/, /a:/ and /ɑ/.

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The Dialects of Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland and Utrecht

Whilst /æ/ is usually absent in the Dutch language, /e/ is used in the form of the lax vowel /e:/.

In Standard Dutch, /e/ is slightly diphthongised to include the realisation of /i/ at the end of its

pronunciation, although it tends to remain a monophthong in non-standard dialects (Booij, 1995). In

place of /ɛ/, vowels can occasionally be more open to resemble a sound closer to /æ/, in words where

the vowel is an orthographic e, not an orthographic a (Collins & Mees, 1982). Therefore, if /æ/ is

detected in Dutch speech it will be where one may also expect to hear the sound /ɛ/, not the sound /a:/,

in words such as zeg [z̥æx] or weg [wæx]. Around Amsterdam, /ɛ/ becomes more centralised, and /ɑ/

also varies, where it may be realised as a more fronted /a:/, especially in the Utrecht region (Schouten,

Crielaard & Van Dijk, 1998; Collins & Mees, 1982; Collins & Mees, 2003). In Zuid-Holland, /ɑ/ is

low back vowel (Collins & Mees, 2003). Additionally, whilst the monophthongs of the Zuid-Holland

province are similar to Standard Dutch, Hoekstra and Scholtmeijer (2004) report that there has been a

shift from the diphthong /εi/ to /ai/.

The Dialect of Limburg

Limburgish is a variety of Dutch that is close to High German (Booij, 1995; Pauwels, 1982;

Zwart, 2011). Dialects within this region vary, and it overlaps the province of Limburg to include

parts of Noord-Brabant (Pauwels, 1982). Limburgish has been characterised by one participant,

originally from Limburg, as being particularly distinct from Standard Dutch due the absence of the

phonemes /x/ and /ɣ/ that are present in Standard Dutch, with the dialect being described as softer than

other varieties (Daan, 1999). Yet there are minor vowel differences as well. The pronunciation of the

orthographic ‘e’ shows allophonic variation around /ɛ/, and the realisation of /ɛ/ as closer to /æ/ can

also be present here (Collins & Mees, 1982).

The Dialect of Noord-Brabant

The province of Noord-Brabant is located west of Limburg, and south of Zuid-Holland and

Gelderland. It borders Belgium to the south, and should not be confused with the neighbouring

Belgian province of Vlaamse Brabant (Flemish Brabant), although there are dialectal similarities

(Peters, 2010; Donaldson, 1983). Parts of Noord-Brabant have a dialect very similar to that of

Limburgish (Donaldson, 1983), due to the provinces’ close proximity to each other. In Brabantian

dialects, the open unrounded /ɑ/ can be realised as a rounded [ɒ] instead (Van Oostendorp, 2000). The

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dialects of Noord-Brabant have a larger set of long vowels than what occurs in Standard Dutch, as

well as the tendency to shorten vowels which is due to morphologically conditioned processes (Van

Oostendorp, 2000). Additionally, in the Brabantish dialect in Tilburg, /e/ can become heightened to /i/,

possibly due to a Proto-Germanic rule that changed this vowel when it occurred before a syllable

containing /i/ or /j/, although modern day Tilburg Dutch, amongst other Brabantish dialects, does not

tend to make distinctions concerning the following syllable (Van Oostendorp, 2000). This is

significant because this may carry across to Brabantish participants’ pronunciations of English words.

In this way, /e/ may be heightened towards /i/, rather than lowered to create /æ/ neutralisation. In

Noord-Brabant, /ɛ/ also tends to be more centralised (Collins & Mees, 2003).

The Dialect of Groningen

The Gronings dialect can extend to an adjacent part of Drenthe, and is characterised by its three-

diphthong (/ɑu/, /œy/ and /æi/) system (Hoppenbrouwers, 1987). In some dialects of this region, the

open back vowel /ɑ/ can become more fronted. Another definitive characteristic of some Groningen

dialects is the tendency to reduce the article “de” to a schwa (Oosterhof, 2008), and although this does

not have an obvious effect on the vowels with which we are working in this study, it is an important

characteristic of the dialect. The vowel system of Groningen, or at least the vowels with which this

study are concerned, does not tend to deviate too much from Standard Dutch, but there may be minor

dialectal differences.

There have also been studies concerning /r/ in Gronings Dutch (Humbert, 1995; Humbert, 1996).

Throughout Groningen it is realised as [r] when before coronal consonants, and when it precedes

labial and velar consonants it is realised as a vowel identical to the vowel before it (Humbert, 1996).

This finding contrasts with other varieties of Dutch, which tend to have a schwa inserted between

non-coronal consonants and the preceding /r/ (Humbert, 1996; Trommelen in Booij, 1995). This is not

likely to have a bearing on the results here, but it is another important finding of the dialect that helps

to distinguish it from other Dutch varieties.

The Dialects of Gelderland and Overijssel

As a peripheral area of the country, with relative distance from Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland,

the Gelderland and Overijssel dialects show considerable variation from Standard Dutch (Wieling,

Nerbonne & Baayen, 2011). The province of Gelderland consists of the major Veluws and

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Achterhoeks dialects, with an early account stating that the dialects of this region are the closest to

German of any of the Dutch varieties (Bosworth, 1848). Historically, and today, Achterhoeks and

Veluws dialects extend over the border of The Netherlands to Germany (Zwart, 2011), and so share

some phonological similarities with the German language. There are some vowel changes; with the

most relevance to this study is the common realisation of /a:/ as closer to /ɔ:/, so that words such as

“praten” (to talk) sound like [ˈprɔ:tən] (Schaars, 2008).

Twents, a major dialect of Overijssel, also differs greatly from Standard Dutch (Van Bree, 1992;

Van Bree, 1997). Like other Low-Saxon varieties, it had little influence on the standardisation of the

language (Smakman, 2006; Van Bree, 1997), and exhibits some phonological differences. The

diphthong /ɛi/ of Standard Dutch is raised and monophthongised to [i:] in the Twents dialect, while

/a:/ can be either [a:] or [ɔ:] in Twents (as in Gelderland). The other major variety of Dutch spoken in

Overijssel is Sallands, geographically west of Twente. This variety also shows similar vowel

variation, with /ɔ:/ often used in place of the Standard /a:/ (Bloemhoff-de Bruijn, 2008).

Hypothesis

Based on the study into the vowels of the Dutch language, and taking into account the

backgrounds of each participant, it was to be expected that one of three results would occur:

The Dutch migrants’ pronunciation of English words have stayed primarily true to Dutch

sounds, where they retain the speech sounds of /ɛ/ and /ɑ/, which are the usual corresponding

phonetic sounds to the written vowels ‘e’ and ‘a’ in Dutch. This presents a contrast between

words ordinarily pronounced with /e/ and /æ/ in Australian English. However, Dutch

phonology, rather than Australian English, is to what is more closely adhered.

The Dutch migrants have largely acquired the phoneme of /æ/, perhaps from hypercorrection

or phonetic accommodation, while retaining /ɛ/ in their speech, so there would still be a

contrast evident between the sounds, and no apparent merger.

The Dutch migrants may have only traces of the Dutch accent left, and the vowel merger has

begun to become evident in their speech. This result would suggest then, that the phenomenon

is not limited to Australian English speakers only.

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Of course, if the Dutch results were to show that the merger was occurring, it would be that they

are using a phoneme that does not generally occur in their native language. This would mean that their

speech, or at least parts of their speech, has converged to that of native speakers of Australian English.

But, perhaps more significantly, it would also suggest that the merger is not, as previously thought,

confined to the speech of native speakers of Australian English. The /e/-/æ/ merger is, as previously

stated, a regional phenomenon which is commonly found in the speakers of Melbourne (Loakes,

2008). We could theorise that, if it is found in the speech of the Dutch migrants, the merger is in fact

related to regional differences between the states, and is a marker of the speech of those living in

Melbourne no matter their dialectal background. In other words, the theory is that the Dutch migrants

have lived in Melbourne for enough time in order for them to be able to pick up on these gradual

speech changes. Therefore, if they do not reflect these changes in their speech, it would suggest that

the change is significant to the Australian English accent only, whereas if the change is in fact evident,

it could suggest that the /e/-/æ/ merger is occurring amongst Melbourne speakers of all backgrounds

and may become a distinct feature of the region. To what extent have the Dutch accommodated, either

consciously or subconsciously, to the speech of Melbourne and its changes?

Methodology

The study consisted of 25 participants, audio recorded saying designated words from a list (See

Appendix 2). Fifteen Dutch migrants over the age of 60 (as well as one aged 56) participated in the

study, as did nine General Australian English speakers of similar ages to use as a comparison against

the results of the Dutch speakers. There were a mix of Australian male (N=4) and female speakers

(N=5), as well as a mix of Dutch male (N=11) and female speakers (N=5). Therefore, maximum

formant frequency was adjusted in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013) to reflect this, set at 5000Hz for

males, and 5500Hz for females. Five formants were measured, but only the first two, F1 and F2 were

recorded, as these formants corresponded to the height and retraction of the vowels, which is what is

being considered in this study.

However, results were not normalised; male and female data were kept separately from each other

due to the male and female voice differences. In addition, this allowed for the results to be more

closely examined. Therefore, results were kept as four distinct groups: Dutch Male, Dutch Female,

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Australian Male and Australian Female. Australian English is characterised by three distinct accent

groups: Cultivated, General and Broad (Mitchell & Delbridge in Harrington, Cox & Evans, 1997).

Speakers of General Australian English were chosen for comparison as it represents the majority of

Australian English speakers (Harrington, Cox & Evans, 1997), as well as being the variety in which

the /e/-/æ/ merger is most commonly seen.

The Dutch participants were generally required to have migrated to Australia after the age of 12.

This was to ensure that the phonemes of their speech were grounded in Dutch, and they had to work

against their established language conventions and knowledge in developing their fluency in English.

Thus, English was absolutely, sequentially at least their L2, and participants were either identified as

being balanced bilinguals or (more commonly) dominant bilinguals whose preferred language was

Dutch. Those aged over 60 were chosen to participate in the study as they had then been living in

Australia long enough to develop an almost native-like understanding of the language, whilst still

retaining Dutch dialectal differences in their speech. But as a contrast, two Dutch speakers were under

the age of 12 upon arrival to Australia, one of whom is not yet 60.

The following table summarises the characteristics of the Dutch participants. In order to avoid

identification of participants, they have been assigned Participant IDs from D1 (Dutch Participant 1)

to D16 (Dutch Participant 16).

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Table 2: Dutch Participants

Participant ID Gender Age of Arrival Current Age Netherlandic Region

D1 Male 19 66 Zeist (Utrecht)

D2 Male 10 71 Tegelen (Limburg)

D3 Male 16 73 Tilburg (Noord-

Brabant)

D4 Male 22 78 Noord-Brabant

D5 Male 27 67 Utrecht (Utrecht)

D6 Female 40 73 Bergsehenhoek

(Zuid-Holland)

D7 Female 22 66 Wognum (Noord-

Holland)

D8 Female 12 68 Haarlem (Noord-

Holland)

D9 Female 16 72 Amsterdam (Noord-

Holland)

D10 Male 18 79 Haren (Groningen)

D11 Male 21 73 Haarlem (Noord-

Holland)

D12 Male 21 75 Rotterdam (Zuid-

Holland)

D13 Male 27 80 Arnhem

(Gelderland)

D14 Male 46 63 Maastricht

(Limburg)

D15 Female 27 74 Enschede

(Overijssel)

D16 Male 8 56 Engelen (Noord-

Brabant)

From the table above, we can see that the Dutch participants in this study arrived from various

regions in The Netherlands at different times in their lives. These differences have been considered

when reviewing their individual results. Results have been presented by group, however Appendix 1

contains detailed notes on some Dutch participants’ unique recordings.

Participants were required to read words from a list, leaving a one second gap between each

word. The /e/ and /æ/ words used for analysis were:

1) Vowel in prelateral position - shell/shall, Ellen/Alan, melody/malady

2) Vowel in prenasal position – men/man, end/and

3) Vowel in pre-rhotic position – berry/Barry

20

Other words included in the list were: wire, told, hot and word. These words were not analysed,

and they were included only to provide differing sounds so that the participants focused less on the

similarities and differences between the word pairs that were to be analysed.

The list words consisted mainly of minimal pairs, some of which were also used in a study by

Loakes, Hajek and Fletcher (2010). The words were chosen in order to elicit possible differing

phonological responses from the speakers. It was predicted that the prelateral pairs would be where

most, if any, mergers were apparent due to the vowels’ positions before /l/, although the list also

included a pre-rhotic pair and two prenasal pairs. It should be noted that the orthographic ‘a’ vowels

would correspond closer to /ɑ/ in Dutch rather than variants of /a:/ as they are pronounced with a

short, rather than long, vowel in Australian English.

Words were presented to the participants to read in the following order: shell, wire, celery, Alan,

shall, word, men, hot, and, salary, Ellen, malady, told, Barry, end, melody, berry, man. It should be

noted, however, that participants had access to viewing all of the words simultaneously, as they were

presented as a list, yet were required to read them in the order shown. Recordings were made using

the Fostex FR-2LE recorder or the Edirol R09 recorder, while an iPhone 5 was used to record back-up

copies for added security of the recordings.

Recordings were then transferred to Audacity, where the vowel sounds were isolated, and then

analysed in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013) in order to establish height and position. The F1/F2

results of the General Australian English speakers were compiled to represent current /æ/ and /e/

boundaries, to which the Dutch results could be compared. In creating these formant graphs, we

assume the phonemes /æ/ and /e/ for Australian English. Additionally, all results were also compared

against F1/F2 vowel formant information from Cox (1999, 2012), Cox and Palethorpe (2007),

Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997), Palethorpe and Cox (2003) and Ladefoged & Johnson (2011) to

determine the IPA symbol most accurately representing the phonetic value for each vowel. These

established plots help determine if there are changes such as fronting or lowering of the vowels of

each group.

21

Results and Discussion

Vowel Position in Australian and Dutch Speech

The study showed that there was no merger evident in the speech of the Australian

participants of this age group, and that each vowel had its own distinct boundary that was relatively

consistent with the findings of Palethorpe and Cox (2003). While this provides a good contrast to use

against the results of the Dutch speakers, it is also evidence towards the merger being age-related, and

more commonly seen in younger speakers of Australian English.

The following plots show the average position of each vowel for the Australian participants,

to be used as a contrast for the Dutch participants. Separate plots showing male and female results

have been created due to the differing frequencies observed in male and female speech.

Figure 3: Female Australian English Speakers (N=5)

F1

F2

22

Figure 4: Male Australian English Speakers (N=4)

The female speakers show no vowel neutralisation, with clear boundaries between the vowels.

The closest pair is celery/salary, but they do not appear close enough together to provide definitive

evidence for neutralisation, although we can see that /e/ is becoming more retracted in prelateral

positions. The prenasal vowels appear to group together, falling within distinctive /e/-/æ/ boundaries,

and there is clear difference between the pre-rhotic pair of berry/Barry. The prelaterals appear further

back than the prenasals and pre-rhotics, with “malady” being the most retracted, which could be

attributed to its occasional mispronunciation by some speakers. These speakers showed a stress shift

to the second syllable, resulting in pronunciations closer to [məˈleidi:]. This of course means that a

completely different word was being pronounced (“milady”, from “my lady”), as there is no variation

on the actual word “malady”: the second and third syllables of the word are weak syllables, which

means the stress must be on the first syllable (Roach, 2009). This therefore must be kept in mind

when analysing results; it is possible that there may have been more neutralisation had there been no

instances of this mispronunciation.

F1

F2

23

The male results show that there is evidence of some neutralisation beginning with prelateral

vowels only, but this was not present in the prenasal and pre-rhotic vowels. Similar to the female

results, the prenasal vowels appear to show distinct boundaries between /e/ and /æ/, which is evidence

for the fact that, in Australian English speech, neutralisation is not likely to occur prenasally. Nor does

it occur when the following consonant is rhotic. Looking at the results for the Female Australian

English speakers, a horizontal straight line can be drawn at roughly the F1 frequency of 660Hz which

separates /æ/ (above the line) from /e/ (below the line). However, a similar straight line cannot be

drawn for the Male Australian English speakers, which indicates that they are more likely to neutralise

their vowels than are the female speakers.

The Dutch speakers’ vowel pronunciations can now be seen compared against the Australian

English speakers’ pronunciations in the formant plots below. Separate female and male speaker plots

have been created. It should be noted that the results for Participant D16 have been included in the

plot below, despite arriving in Australia earlier than the other participants, and not yet at the age of 60.

Participant D16’s results will be discussed further in a later section, but there were generally no

anomalies from the results of the other Dutch participants, so the formant values of Participant D16’s

results are included in the average.

The plots below show the average position for the pronunciation of the vowel in each word:

24

Figure 5: Female Dutch Speakers (N=5)

Figure 6: Male Dutch Speakers (N=11)

F1

F2

F1

F2

25

The above plots show the positions of the Dutch female and male vowels, which have been

compared against their Australian counterparts. The Dutch vowels show that they are generally lower

and more retracted than the Australian vowels, and the minimal pairs for the Dutch participants appear

much closer together than the Australian participants’ do. The Dutch female results show consistent

neutralisation, with the pair of melody/malady showing the least. The vowels of the prelateral pairs

are the most retracted, while the prenasals are the most fronted, and the pre-rhotic vowels sit in

between. The Dutch male results show a similar pattern, although the pre-rhotic pair, berry/Barry,

shows the least neutralisation here. The Dutch males’ F1 formants are higher than the Dutch females’,

and their F2 formants are lower, corresponding with the Australian male and female data.

From these results, we can see that the Dutch results follow the same pattern as the Australian

results when it comes to vowel position in relation to retraction. Vowels that appear prenasally are the

most fronted across all groups, pre-rhotic vowels are centred, and prelateral vowels show the most

retraction. The main difference is in the height of the vowels, with the Dutch /ɛ/ being lowered, and

the Dutch /ɑ/ becoming slightly higher and more fronted to create neutralisation around /ɛ/ and /a/.

The following plots show the average position of the orthographic ‘e’ and ‘a’ vowels:

26

Figure 7: Average Vowel Positions for All Speakers

If we look at the plots comparing the boundaries for the orthographic ‘e’ and ‘a’ vowels, it is

evident that there is much more neutralisation within the Dutch speakers’ vowels than the Australian

speakers. No participants showed results that displayed either vowel as always higher than the other;

these frequencies changed, which is evidence for these vowels not having their own distinct

boundaries. However, on average, ‘e’ was at a slightly lower F1 formant frequency for the Dutch

female participants, and ‘a’ was at a slightly higher F1 formant frequency for the Dutch male

participants. Looking at the graph, though, we can clearly see that there is very little difference

between the Dutch vowels, and neutralisation is occurring. The Dutch females’ neutralisation is

happening at higher frequencies than the Australian females’ vowel boundaries (which corresponds to

a lower position in the vowel space as the formant frequency plots show an inverse scale), whilst the

Dutch males’ neutralisation happens between the Australian males’ vowel boundaries. This puts their

neutralisation occurring closest to the cardinal values of /ɛ/ and /a/, whilst for the Dutch females it is

closer to /a/. If we assume that the Dutch migrants arrived in Australia with their vowels

corresponding to the phonetic values of /ɑ/ and /ɛ/ - which is likely given the earlier discussion on

each major regional dialect present in this study – then it appears that there is a fronting merger from

/ɑ/ present. This will be discussed in more detail further on in the section “Fronting from /ɑ/”.

F1

F2

27

However, we can also see that the Dutch participants’ vowels have remained largely true to

their Dutch origins. There has been some shift towards the use of the phoneme /æ/ for the

orthographic ‘e’, particularly amongst those speakers from Noord-Holland where /ɛ/ is occasionally

pronounced closer to /æ/. These speakers were then more likely to have the Australian English /e/-/æ/

merger evident in their speech, but it has not become a full shift. To analyse this further, we can more

closely consider the results of Participant D7, from Noord-Holland:

Figure 8: Participant D7's Vowel Plot

The realisation (and neutralisation) of /e/ as /a/, and moving towards /æ/ was apparent in one

pairing, the Ellen/Alan pair. However, the F2 value for Alan was slightly lower than for Ellen,

resulting in a slightly further back realisation of the /æ/ vowel. This presents some evidence for this

participant’s Dutch /ɑ/ moving forward, and /ɛ/ moving lower. It is possible that the neutralisation to

/æ/ may begin to occur in this participant, if given more exposure to the merger in Australian English.

This is speculated due to the results showing /ɛ/ becoming lower, which is particularly evident in

“melody”, “celery” and “Ellen”, where the vowel /e/ is in the prelateral position.

F1

F2

28

Prelateral Neutralisation

What the Dutch results show that is absent in the Australian results, is that neutralisation tends

to occur in any position. It has already been established that, in the Australian results, there is some

evidence to support a possible merger in the prelateral position (refer to Figure 3), but this does not

extend to vowels occurring in other circumstances. What this means is that, amongst Australian

speakers, rhotic and nasal consonants have not contributed to the neutralisation of the preceding

vowel, yet prelateral minimal pairs showed less clear boundaries. Within the Dutch results,

neutralisation occurred no matter the properties of the following consonant, although this was less so

before the rhotic consonant. The difference is that, while neutralisation occurred in prelateral, pre-

rhotic and prenasal conditions, the phonetic realisation of the vowel differed depending on the

consonant that followed.

Distinctions were generally not always made between the orthographic ‘e’ and ‘a’, with

minimal pairs often showing neutralisation. Vowels before /l/ tended towards the phonetic values

close to the cardinals [a] or [ɛ], with those before /r/ and /n/ towards [ɛ] and often closer to [æ]. In

Dutch speech, /ɑ/ and /a:/ can be raised and more open before /r/ (Collins & Mees, 2003), and this

appears to have been carried over to the Dutch participants’ English pronunciations here. It therefore

follows that the vowels before /l/ will have been realised quite differently to the vowels before /r/ and

/n/.

The vowel formant plots below show the average position of prelateral vowels for male and

female Dutch participants, contrasted against the positions of the pre-rhotic and pre-nasal vowels.

29

Figure 9: Dutch Female Vowel Position

Figure 10: Dutch Male Vowel Position

F1

F2

F1

F2

30

The Dutch speakers did show prelateral neutralisation, yet it did not fit with the /e/-/æ/ merger

of Australian English. The Dutch do tend to neutralise the vowels in the prelateral position, before

velarised (or dark) [ɫ] (Collins & Mees, 2003), yet have mostly retained their own Dutch phonemic

realisations, so any mergers before /l/ are realised less as /æ/ but more as variants of /a/ or /ɛ/. Dutch

speakers tend to retain their vowels but the neutralisation is not only common to Australian English.

However, there was definitely some merging towards more open front vowels pre-rhotically and

prenasally. Before /n/, speakers are more likely to nasalise the preceding vowel resulting in the

realisation of these vowels as more open than prelaterals (Collins & Mees, 2003). These

neutralisations showed most correspondence to the phonetic values for /ɛ/.

The prelateral neutralisation was generally a merger towards variants of the Dutch /a/, such as

[ä], or [ɐ], rather than the Australian /æ/. However, it is the phonology of the Dutch language rather

than Australian English that is likely to have contributed to this shift: the vowels of Dutch tends to

become lower and more retracted when before [ɫ] (Botma, Sebregts & Smakman, 2010; Collins &

Mees, 1982; Collins & Mees, 2003), essentially giving very similar phonetic properties. This is

especially evident in the pronunciation of /ɛ/ (Collins & Mees, 2003), which has lowered to neutralise

with /a/. The spectrograms below show Participants D1’s and D6’s pronunciations of “shall”, where

an F2 decline at the end of the vowel, corresponding to its retraction, is clearly visible. The pattern of

retraction shown in the Dutch prelateral vowels is consistent here with the findings of Botma,

Sebregts and Smakman (2010; 2012).

31

Figure 11: D1 pronunciation of “shall”

Time (s)

0 1.110

5000

Fre

qu

ency

(H

z)

0.554773243

Figure 12: D6 pronunciation of “shall”

Time (s)

0 1.1940

5000

Fre

qu

ency

(H

z)

0.597063492

32

The fact that the majority of prelateral vowels have been analysed as further back than vowels

in other positions is therefore consistent with Dutch phonology. Consequently it cannot be concluded

with any certainty that the /e/-/æ/ merger heard in Australian English speakers has had a bearing on

the lowered vowels here; it would appear that the vowels are following Dutch, rather than English,

phonology. This is evident in the fact that while /l/, and especially [ɫ], have a bearing on how some

Australian English speakers are shifting from /e/ to /æ/ (Loakes, Hajek & Fletcher, 2010), the Dutch

are not showing a shift to the same phoneme. /l/ contributes to the lowering of vowels within each

language’s distribution of phonemes but does not necessarily cause a merger from one dialect to

another despite prolonged exposure to the second dialect.

A common finding seen in both the Australian and Dutch groups was the retraction of

prelateral vowels, but especially in the pairs of melody/malady and celery/salary. It is possible that

because these are three-syllable words, rather than one or two, that the first syllable vowel was not

articulated as much as the vowels of the other words, resulting in the correspondence close to a schwa.

Additionally, the word “malady” was occasionally mispronounced as [məˈleidi:], with a stress shift

onto the second syllable rather than the first, which has been discussed in an earlier section.

The Rhotic Consonant

In Figure 9 and Figure 10 above, we can see that pre-rhotic vowels showed the least

neutralisation. The differing rhotic consonant of Dutch should be discussed here, as the differing

realisations of /r/ throughout The Netherlands may have had a bearing on the preceding vowel. The

differing realisations of /r/ in Dutch were discussed earlier, but we should now look at it in relation to

its effect on the vowels.

The /r/ tends to centralise the vowels in Dutch (Botma, Sebregts & Smakman, 2012); it also has a

lengthening effect, which means that long vowels are often lengthened further when preceding /r/, and

may end in a schwa which accounts for the centralisation (Booij, 1995). The vowels appearing before

the rhotic consonant in this study are not long vowels, yet participants did tend to lengthen them,

much more so than the prelaterals, which were short and retracted. This can be seen in the

spectrograms below, which show Participant D12’s pronunciations of “Alan” and “Barry”:

33

Figure 13: D12 pronunciation of "Alan"

Figure 14: D12 pronunciation of "Barry"

34

Collins and Mees (2003) state that after /ɑ/ and /ɛ/, this can sound more like a [j] or [ī] glide. This

does not account for less neutralisation between the rhotic minimal pair, but it does explain its

position as the most centralised realisation, between the prelateral and pre-nasal pairs.

The /ɛ/ Neutralisation

The findings of Loakes, Hajek and Fletcher (2010) showed that in speakers of Australian English,

the vowel corresponding to the orthographic ‘e’ was becoming lower and more commonly realised as

/æ/ rather than /e/ when occurring before /l/, especially when /l/ is velarised to [ɫ]. While this merger

was not necessarily evident in this study’s Australian participants, the focus is really on how it is seen

in the Dutch speech. Certainly, the Dutch speakers did tend to realise their vowels as lower than /e/,

but centred more around /ɛ/ than /æ/. The prenasal vowels showed the least neutralisation amongst the

Australian speakers, with a clear distinction between /e/ and /æ/, however this was markedly different

amongst the Dutch speakers, who showed /ɛ/ for most prenasals.

It was stated earlier that an explanation for the vowel merger in Australian English may be due to

some Australian speakers’ tendencies to use /ɛ/ instead of /e/, and as /ɛ/ is predominantly used for the

pronunciation of the orthographic ‘e’ in Dutch, this may have a profound effect on their speech. It

could suggest a shift to /ɛ/ as a common point between the phonemes /e/ and /æ/. If we consider this

alongside the hypercorrection theory proposed by Ohala (1993), it follows that the Dutch would

continue to integrate neutralisation around /ɛ/ in their speech.

Fronting of /ɑ/

Many of the Dutch participants did not appear to acquire the /æ/ sound of Australian English, with

pronunciations as /ɛ/, /ɐ/ and /a/ common in place of it. Their vowels have, however, become more

open and there is a shift from /ɑ/ as would be the Standard Dutch pronunciation for the orthographic

‘a’. There did not appear to be enough conclusive evidence to suggest a merger to /æ/, yet there

appears to be a merger to /ɐ/ where the ‘e’ appears prelaterally. This confirms the role of /l/ in

changing the preceding vowel, yet for the Dutch participants this is towards /a/, rather than /æ/ which

is slightly higher, which means they are fronting from /ɑ/ to /a/ without raising their vowels.

35

However, it can be speculated here that /ɐ/ neutralisation may be the Dutch equivalent of /æ/

neutralisation, as many Dutch migrants do not exhibit the phoneme /æ/ in their speech. This was only

evident in some Dutch speakers, as the /e/-/æ/ merger is only evident in some Australian English

speakers, yet based on its appearance in this study, I would suggest further research into this area. If

/a/ is an allophone of /æ/ in Dutch migrant speech, as this study has shown it can be, then it follows

that the phonological neutralisation of the orthographic ‘e’ and ‘a’ to a mid-low front vowel in the

Dutch speakers could be seen to be an analogue of the /e/-/æ/ merger that is relative to the underlying

vowel system for the speakers in which this neutralisation is seen.

Yet, interestingly, Participant D2 did not appear to exhibit any use of /a/, or any allophones of it

that are common to the Dutch language. It is interesting to compare Participant D2’s lack of the vowel

merger to the other Dutch participants – as the Dutch respondent who has spent most time in

Australia, it would perhaps have been expected that he would be more likely to exhibit a merger, yet

this was seen more towards /ɛ/ than /æ/, as the vowels fell somewhat higher than the /æ/ boundaries of

the Australian English participants:

Figure 15: Participant D2's Vowel Plot

F1

F2

36

Participant D2 did not use /æ/ in his speech at all, with his vowels realised as generally above a

centred position in height. Prenasal vowels were more fronted, with pre-rhotics centred, and

prelaterals realised as further back towards /ɔ/. It is interesting to consider whether this participant

was following the vowel system of Australian English, or whether their vowels were more

characteristic of Limburgish as a dialect quite distinct from the other Dutch dialects. This is because

their results did not appear to be consistent with the averages of either male group, as the vowels were

noticeably higher. However, the backing of the vowels here, with the exception of the pre-nasal pairs,

was slightly more consistent with male Australian speech (and thus more similar to the male

Australian speakers in this study) than Dutch speech, although showed higher vowels and more

neutralisation, which may be as a result of hypercorrection. To attempt an explanation of this, this

participant was rather younger than the other Dutch migrants upon arrival to Australia, which allowed

for him to pick up the Australian vowels much more easily than the other participants. Therefore, my

interpretation is that throughout the years his pronunciation has drawn on Australian English

phonology more than Dutch, resulting in some neutralisation in a higher vowel space.

It is clear that there are some neutralisations occurring. Yet, especially for the Dutch participants,

they do not generally show a pattern of neutralisation to /æ/; this particular merger certainly did not

occur enough within this group in order to definitively conclude in favour of its appearance. It was

most closely demonstrated before prenasal vowels in the speech of Participant D1, with these vowels

being realised as slightly lower but more fronted than others. Yet it is more likely that this is due to the

participant’s Dutch dialect rather than any acquisition of an Australian vowel shift. It is possible that

this participant acquired sounds close to /æ/ due to the dialect of Utrecht realising the Dutch /ɑ/ as

more open and lengthened, usually to /a:/, and therefore closer to the open unrounded /æ/ (Schouten,

Crielaard & Van Dijk, 1998; Collins & Mees, 1982).

Migrating Before Age 12

As stated in the Methodology section, the study was comprised mainly of Dutch migrants

over the age of 60 who migrated to Australia before the age of 12. Two participants (D2 and D16) fell

just out of these age boundaries, but the analysis of their results is important to the research because

they provide an interesting contrast. It has already been discussed that the vowel pronunciation of

Participant D2 (who arrived in Australia at the age of 10) showed more resemblance to the vowels of

Australian English than the other Dutch participants, yet Participant D16’s results showed a strong

correspondence to the other Dutch participants. Only the vowel in “berry” displayed a height

37

corresponding to the Australian /e/ but many Dutch participants had one or two words that did not fit

the general pattern, so Participant D16’s results are consistent with the rest of the Dutch group.

These results tell us that there may be other factors to consider, other than age, when looking at

the results. For example, the social situations in which Dutch migrants find themselves may be

important. Even if they migrated before a certain age, if they continued to speak Dutch at home while

speaking English in the community, it follows that they might show the same vowel patterns as those

who migrated later. Factors such as social networks were not investigated in this study, but that is an

aspect that may be considered in future research.

Limitations

There are some limitations to this study that must be considered when reviewing the results.

First of all, the dialects and languages used for daily interactions between Dutch participants may

have influenced the results in part. If one participant continues to speak Dutch frequently at home or

in social situations, while another does no more than retain a knowledge of the language, it is quite

possible that their vowels are realised differently. Although, it should be noted here that the majority

of Dutch participants would have migrated to Australia when assimilation into the monolingual

English society was deemed mandatory, and any use of a language other than English was taken as a

sign that the speaker was not willing to assimilate into the Australian culture (Ammerlaan, 1996).

Thus, any use of Dutch was discouraged. Participant D11 recalled his experience of moving to

Australia from Haarlem at age 21, reiterating the fact that he was explicitly told not to speak Dutch

upon his arrival.

In addition to the first point, education level was also not reflected upon or investigated,

despite the large possibility that the participants all had differing degrees of education or experience

which may also have contributed to their speech. This study considered the age and original dialect of

participants only, as to reflect upon other aspects would have led to too many variables, and therefore

the inability to draw a conclusion.

The third aspect that must be considered is that the word list was visible to participants at all

times. Although they were not given time to look over the words prior to the recording taking place,

38

the words were still presented in the form of a list that would have allowed participants to scan over

what they were reading. It is worth noting that results may have differed slightly had the participants

been presented with one word at a time, such as on flash cards. Despite this, the results still showed

evidence of neutralisation between the vowels, concentrating mainly around the phonetic values for

/ɛ/ and /a/.

Summary

The general results of this study follow the findings of Loakes, Hajek and Fletcher (2010) that

the neutralisation of /e/ and /æ/ in Australian English is most likely to occur prelaterally. However,

many of the results from this study did not necessarily display a merger from /e/ to /æ/, but rather

neutralisation around /ɛ/ instead. This provides evidence for a theory that the apparent merger may not

be one-sided from /e/ to /æ/, but rather the sounds are merging to /ɛ/ most often before /l/. There is

little evidence to support a general merger of either of these phonemes as uninfluenced by the

following consonant, as when before /r/ or /n/ there was more of a clear distinction between /e/ and

/æ/.

In relation to the three most possible scenarios listed in the Methodology section, the one that

fits the most is Possibility 1. There has been limited realisation of Australian vowels, most accurately

confirmed by the absence of /e/ in the Dutch speakers. It would have been expected that had a merger

been occurring due to the Dutch speakers acquiring the sounds of Australian English, that some would

retain the Australian /e/, yet this was not evident. Therefore, the shifts towards /æ/ may be due to the

Dutch participants’ backgrounds of coming from an area where vowels tended to present themselves

as more open than their Standard Dutch counterparts, or they may be due to a merger of Dutch vowels

that holds equivalence with the Australian /e/-/æ/ merger where the same process is happening but the

phonetic consequences are different. This, however, needs to be examined in the context of where the

vowels actually appear in the word, as the following consonant has had some bearing on the phonetic

realisation of the vowel.

Whilst there was individual variation between the Dutch speakers regarding the actual

phonemes used, what was apparent throughout all of their speech was the fronting of pre-nasals and

the low-back position of prelaterals. Neutralisation between the orthographic ‘e’ and ‘a’ was common,

although not towards /æ/. The phoneme /ɑ/, although common in the Dutch language has not

39

transferred across to the Dutch pronunciation of Australian vowels, although nor do they tend to

realise vowels with the Australian /æ/ either. The variants of /a/ seen mainly in prelateral vowels seem

to be a replacement for /ɑ/ in the Dutch pronunciation of Australian vowels, meaning that they have

quite considerably fronted their vowels from their original Dutch speech. /æ/ is quite different from

/ɑ/, however, so it we can view /a/ as a form of compromise in Dutch speech towards a shift to /æ/.

But /ɛ/ is not so phonemically different from /e/, which allows the Dutch to retain their slightly lower

pronunciation of ‘e’ without creating communication barriers.

Conclusion

The results of this study support Loakes’ (2008) findings that /l/ or [ɫ] in the syllable coda

position influences the preceding vowel to become lowered. It also suggests the /e/-/æ/ merger to be a

feature of the Australian English dialect of Melbourne, rather than a phenomenon evident within

foreign dialects within this region. Other interesting findings, however, were discovered during the

course of this study, such as /ɛ/ and /a/ neutralisation amongst Dutch speakers, and the fronting of the

Dutch /ɑ/, into which it would be interesting to conduct further research in order to learn more about

the conditions under which these appear. Whilst this study does not prove that the /e/-/æ/ merger is

occurring in the Dutch pronunciations of English words, what is does provide is evidence towards the

shifting of /ɑ/ in Dutch speakers into a more fronted position.

Based on all of this data, a conclusion can be drawn as to the patterns being formed in the

Dutch speech, and how this relates overall to the appearance of the /e/-/æ/ merger in Melbourne

English. It would appear that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that a merger to /æ/ is

occurring amongst the Dutch speakers, however there is a merger apparent that has a very different

phonetic value. In most dialects of Dutch, /ɑ/ and /ɛ/ have their own clear boundaries, yet in their

English speech, these boundaries appear to have blurred, resulting in some neutralisation. As has been

discussed above, this neutralisation centres around the phonetic values for /ɛ/ and /a/. There is a major

difference between this neutralisation and what has been observed in Australian speech throughout

earlier studies, and that is while the Australian /e/-/æ/ merger occurred though the lowering of /e/, the

merger seen amongst the Dutch participants has happened due to different processes. At the phonemic

level, both mergers are very similar occurrences, but the consequences are quite different; that is the

realisations of the vowels differ between the groups.

40

This therefore suggests that the Australian /e/-/æ/ merger, although not apparent in this study’s

over-60 age group may still be influencing migrant speech on a more abstract level. The Australian

participants and the Dutch participants have quite a different phonology in their respective dialects,

yet the phonetic values within their speech display equivalence to each other. What this means is that

the Australian English /e/ corresponds to the Dutch /ɛ/, and the Australian English /æ/ corresponds to

the Dutch /ɑ/. The fronting of the Dutch /ɑ/ evident in the results of the Dutch participants can be seen

to be an accommodation of Australian English phonology, while not extending the fronting of the

vowel all the way to /æ/. Based on this (and considering each participant’s dialectal variety of Dutch),

the conclusion is that it is most probable that the Australian English dialect has had an effect on the

speech of the Dutch participants. Their speech has therefore begun a process of accommodation which

is at different stages of advancement in each participant, but the phonetic consequences of this

accommodation are quite different to that of its influence, the Australian English dialect.

41

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46

Appendices

Appendix 1

This appendix contains notes on the findings of some individual Dutch participants.

Participant D1 (Dutch 1) - Male

Participant D1 arrived in Australia from Zeist, near Utrecht in The Netherlands at the age of

19. The dialect of the Utrecht province is the Northern Central Hollands-Utrecht dialect, which is

similar to Standard Dutch. For this participant, we can assume the specifications of Standard Dutch.

This participant did not appear to display any use of the phoneme /e/ (as compared to the Australian

participants) which is more apparent in Australian English phonology than Dutch. Whilst the lowest

vowel used was apparent in the pronunciation of “Alan” as /ä/, its partner, “Ellen”, was realised with a

more open variant of /a/, and other pairs centred mostly around /ɛ/. Low back vowels were also

realised in pairs such as “celery” and “salary”, and “melody” and “malady”, with their vowels being

the most retracted, although “shell” and “shall” were slightly higher and more fronted closer to /ɛ/.

Participant D2 (Dutch 2) - Male

Participant D2 was a younger arrival to Australia than the other Dutch participants, which has

made for an interesting contrast. The vowels of his speech were in fact noticeably higher than of the

other Dutch participants, most probably due to more time being spent in Australia, and therefore a

more native adjustment to Australian English.

Participant D3 (Dutch 3) - Male

Participant D3, from Brabant, showed similar results to Participant D1. There was a clear

pattern emerging from his vowel use, with vowels before /l/ realised as /ä/ or /ɐ/, with vowels before

/r/ realised as /ɛ/, tending towards /æ/, and prenasals as /æ/. The phoneme /e/ was absent from this

participant’s speech, with all e vowels being pronounced markedly lower than the Australian English

standard pronunciation of /e/. This participant exhibited a vowel shift to both /æ/ and /ä/ in their

speech, with no traditional Australian English pronunciations of the orthographic e vowel recognised.

47

Participant D4 (Dutch 4) - Male

Participant D4 was also from Brabant, but used differing, slightly higher vowel sounds. While

Participant D4 followed the same pattern as other Dutch participants where prelateral vowels were

generally recognised as further back than other vowels, the vowels also tended to be slightly higher.

As such, this participant displayed a merger towards recognising his vowels as /ɛ/, with the prenasal

and pre-rhotic vowels as more fronted than the prelaterals. The F1 formant values showed all vowels

to be kept at generally the same, centred, height, yet the F2 values showed a marked difference

between the position of pre-nasals, which were quite fronted, and prelaterals, which were retracted.

With no merger occurring towards /æ/, it can be concluded that no Australian English vowel shift is

evident in the speech of this participant. To account for the relative difference between the Brabant

participants D3 and D4 in exhibiting the phoneme /æ/, it can be speculated that Participant D3’s use of

it may be attributed to his arriving in Australia at a slightly younger age than Participant D4.

Participant D5 (Dutch 5) - Male

Participant D5, like Participant D1, arrived in Australia from the province of Utrecht. His

vowels have demonstrated a fronting from Dutch vowels, and exhibited little variation between the

pairs of words. Vowels presented as slightly higher and further back than Participant D1, but exhibited

the same pattern where the vowels “celery” and “salary”, and “melody” and “malady” were markedly

realised as back vowels. There was less of a shift towards /æ/ evident in the speech of this participant,

but prenasals in particular appeared to show neutralisation around /ɛ/.

Participant D6 (Dutch 6) - Female

Participant D6, from Zuid-Holland, tended towards more use of front vowels than the other

Dutch participants, although the height of the vowels remained similar. Those from Zuid-Holland find

their speech characterised as different from an Utrecht dialect due to their longer vowels where

Utrecht’s vowels are short (Hoekstra & Scholtmeijer, 2004; Schouten, Crielaard & Van Dijk, 1998). It

is possible, therefore, that the /ɛi/-/ai/ merger seen in Zuid-Holland may have had somewhat of an

impact on their vowels here. Vowels that would have been realised with /ɛ/ in Standard Dutch tended

to be lower and more fronted, with the prenasal vowels the most fronted, although still corresponding

to what has been identified as /ɛ/. As was the case with other Dutch participants, the prelateral vowels

were the farthest back with the most lowering evident.

48

Participant D7 (Dutch 7) - Female

The lowering of vowels before /l/, common to the Noord-Holland dialect (Collins & Mees)

was evident in this participant’s speech, yet the vowels were also more fronted than they would be in

the Dutch language. The vowels occurring before /n/ were the most fronted, and corresponded closest

to the IPA /e/ or /ɛ/.

Participant D9 (Dutch 9) - Female

Pre-nasal vowels slightly more retracted than other female participants, yet still the most

fronted of all vowels. The traditional Dutch pronunciation of /ɑ/ is realised only in “malady”, with

other a vowels appearing in higher, fronted positions. Pairs distinguished easily from each other, no

neutralisation.

Participant D10 (Dutch 10) - Male

Participant D10 has lived in Australia for 61 years, after arriving from Harem, Groningen at

the age of 18. Neutralisation of vowels was common to his speech, although, similar to other Dutch

participants, this was a more centred neutralisation that was more retracted than /æ/. The minimal pair

of “Ellen” and “Alan” were virtually indistinguishable from each other, both to the ear and through

acoustic analysis. However, this neutralisation was not to /æ/, as it would be for an Australian English

dialect.

Participant D11 (Dutch 11) - Male

Participant D11 showed some neutralisation to /a/, following the pattern that the Dutch

migrants' vowels have become more fronted from /ɑ/, but not as fronted as /æ/. This participant

arrived in Australia from Haarlem, and reported that the Dutch migrating to Australia were told to

assimilate and that speaking Dutch should be avoided; this could account for the fronting of the /ɑ/

vowel as a form of assimilation in speech. As with the other participants, prelateral vowels tended to

be more retracted, and prenasal vowels more fronted. Almost every pair showed some neutralisation,

with the prelateral and pre-rhotic vowels neutralising to /a/, and the prenasal vowels neutralising to

/ɛ/.

49

Appendix 2

This Appendix shows the word list presented to participants.