Differences in the Pronunciation of English in Switzerland

8/13/2019 Differences in the Pronunciation of English in Switzerland

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MATURAPAPER

Differences in the

Pronunciation of English in

SwitzerlandThe differences in the pronunciation of English by

non-native speakers in different cantons and its

possible connection to their native dialectSubmitted by: Lukas Tribelhorn, 4bW

Supervised by: Michael Bhler

06.12.2013

Kantonsschule Wil


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Table of Contents

Preface

1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Aims of this Paper........................................................................................................................... 13. Phonetics and Phonology................................................................................................................ 2

3.1. The International Phonetic Alphabet .......................................................................................... 2

4. Dialectology..................................................................................................................................... 3

4.1. What is a language, what is a dialect and what is an accent ...................................................... 3

4.2. Received Pronunciation .............................................................................................................. 4

4.2.1. Vowels ............................................................................................................................ 5

4.2.2. Consonants ..................................................................................................................... 6

4.3. Different dialects of Swiss German ............................................................................................. 6

4.3.1. Basel German ................................................................................................................. 6

4.3.2. Grisons German .............................................................................................................. 7

4.3.3. Zurich German ................................................................................................................ 7

4.4. The International Dialects of English Archive ............................................................................. 9

5. Method.......................................................................................................................................... 10

6. Results............................................................................................................................................ 12

6.1. Basel .......................................................................................................................................... 12

6.2. Chur ........................................................................................................................................... 15

6.3. Zurich ......................................................................................................................................... 18

7. Discussion of the Results............................................................................................................... 21

7.1. Different pronunciations appearing in the results .................................................................... 21

7.2. Possible causes for the differences in pronunciation in the recordings from Zurich ............... 30

7.2.1. Substitution of non-existent vowels and consonants .................................................. 30

7.2.2. Missing knowledge or concentration ........................................................................... 31

8. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 33

Bibliography........................................................................................................................................... 34

AppendixField Recording Guide........................................................................................................... I

Declaration of Authenticity.................................................................................................................... IV


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Preface

Nearly four years ago, when I had to fill out the registration form for the Kantonsschule, I

decided pretty soon that I wanted to be in a bilingual class. I saw this as a big chance and I

looked forward to it, as I liked the English language and was excited to have my first lessons

totally in English.

Approaching the end of my years at the Kantonsschule Wil, I finally had to start thinking about

what I want to study later. Not surprisingly I thought about studying English together with a

second subject. Yet, this will maybe not be my final choice.

In search of a topic for my matura paper, I went through all my interests, passions and hobbies

and thought of doing something linguistic as this would also be a big help to distinguish what I

want to study later. As I wanted to write a paper with a practical part, I soon thought of the idea

to compare the differences in the pronunciation of people from different cantons and to find a

connection to their native dialect. During the work on this paper the topic changed slightly, yet

it still gave me a very good insight into phonetic work, which will definitely help me chose the

subject I want to study later.

I want to thank multiple persons for their contribution to this paper. First I want to thank my

supervisor Mr. Bhler, who helped me with all my questions, provided me with some very good

books as resource for the phonetic work and was a very helpful and supporting supervisor. Then

I would especially like to thank Ms. Petra Stadler from the Kantonsschule Kirschgarten in Basel,

Ms. Franziska Jaeger from the Bndner Kantonsschule in Chur and Mr. Ralph Kilchenmann from

the Kantonsschule Hottingen in Zurich, together with their students who gave me their time and

the possibility to record them. Without them I would have no recordings to analyse and

compare. I would also like to thank Mr. Paul Meier, the Founder and Director of the

International Dialects of English Archive, who helped me with my questions concerning phonetic

transcription and who provided a complete phonetic transcription of an RP recording which

helped me a lot during the analysis of my recordings. Last but not least I would like to thank Mr.

Reto Linder, Ms. Patricia Tribelhorn, Ms. Avril Graham, my mother and my brother, who did a

great job as proofreaders, for the time they invested into this paper.


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Lukas Tribelhorn 1

1. IntroductionFrom daily life we know that every person pronounces a word a little differently. Sometimes we

talk about an accent or a dialect in this context. What is the difference and is there one?

Especially when speaking foreign languages, people say that we have a strong accent. Could this

accent be influenced by the native language or dialect?

For this project, several people from different cantons of Switzerland have been given the same

text to read, then the recordings have been translated into phonetic language and analysed in

order to be compared. The results from the recordings from Zurich have then been compared to

their native dialect and a connection between these has been sought.

This research will focus on students, who are born and grew up in either the canton of Zurich,

Basel or Grisons. These three cantons have been chosen because they promised the best chance

to get valuable recordings as they speak three fairly different dialects, with a different

pronunciation each, which should provide very good resources for analysing and comparing.

2. Aims of this PaperThe aims of this paper are to find and present differences and similarities between the

pronunciations of English of students from three different cantons of Switzerland. Furthermore

for the recordings from Zurich it is also an aim to investigate if there could possibly be a

connection to the native dialect of a person and if more detailed researches about this topic

would be worthwhile.


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3. Phonetics and PhonologyAs this paper is about phonetics, a definition of phonetics as well as of phonology is needed to

understand the following topics. Therefore this chapter will present some relevant aspects of

phonetics and phonology and the connection between these.

Phonetics, as well as phonology, is a very important branch of linguistics. It describes the sounds

of human speech, or alternatively in sign language, the corresponding aspects of sign.

Specifically, it is articulatory phonetics which deals with how speech sounds are made using the

articulatory and vocal tract, auditory phonetics which describes how they are perceived by the

listener and acoustic phonetics which deals with the physics involved during the transmission

form the speaker to the listener. So phonetics is the same for every language which can be

spoken as well as for all sign languages (Davenport und Hannahs 2-3).

Phonology, on the other hand, deals with how these speech sounds are systematically organised

into abstract systems of sounds for the individual varieties; for example how they can be

combined and how they affect each other. It also studies the relationships between the sounds

within a language or between different languages and the prosodic features, as for example

pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm (Davenport und Hannahs 2-3); (Wikimedia Foundation par.

1-2).

A distinction which will be important for the following chapters is the one between phonemes

and allophones. A phoneme is a distinctive structural element in the sound system of a

language. (Finegan 109) Allophones, however, are variants of a single structural element in

the sound system of a language . (Finegan 109) For example [ph] is an allophone of the

phoneme /p/. So if a different allophone is used in a word, the meaning is still the same. Yet it

may sound strange to a listener. If, however, the phoneme gets displaced by a different

phoneme, the meaning of the word will, in most cases, be different.

3.1.The International Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Association is the oldest, as well as the most influential organisation

for phoneticians. It was founded in Paris in 1886 and published the first version of the

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which was for the first time uniformly usable for all

languages, in 1888. After several revisions in 1900, 1932, 1989, 1993 and the last in 2005 the IPA

was finally completed in the form it has today. Today the IPA consists of 107 letters, 52 diacritics

and four prosodic marks. Diacritics are marks which are added to the letters to show a certain


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alteration or small difference in pronunciation, as for example the higher case h /h/ which shows

an aspiration. The IPA is currently the most common alphabet used for any kind of phonetic

work (Wikimedia Foundation). The phonetic transcriptions for this paper were all done in IPA or

sometimes near-phonetic comments.

4. Dialectology4.1.What is a language, what is a dialect and what is an accent

To define what the boundaries of a language exactly are, is considered to be almost impossible.

Some linguists say that a language is a collection of mutually intelligibledialects. But after all,

this distinction leaves us with several difficulties as for example Norwegian, Swedish and Danish

are considered to be different languages, although they are mutually intelligible. So this

definition cannot be completely true. The reasons for why a language is considered a language

are also political, geographical, historical, sociological and cultural as well as linguistic. Very

often, a language is also one of the criteria for being a nation as this creates a feeling of unity

(Chambers und Trudgill 3).

Therefore many linguists, for example Chambers and Trudgill or Edward Finegan, talk about

varieties. According to Chambers and Trudgill, a variety is a neutral term to apply to any

particular kind of language which we wish for some purpose, to consider as a single entity.

(Chambers und Trudgill 5).

With this definition it is now possible to accurately define the terms dialect and accent.

An accent is defined by Chambers and Trudgill as the following.

Accent refers to the way in which a speaker pronounces, and therefore refers to a

variety which is phonetically and/or phonologically different from other varieties.

(Chambers und Trudgill 5)

Dialects on the other hand are defined as

varieties which are grammatically (and perhaps lexically) as well as phonologically

different from other varieties. (Chambers und Trudgill 5)

Therefore, an accent mainly refers to the way a speaker sounds and not to the vocabulary or

grammar he uses. It is, for example, possible to read out loud a given text with a Scottish accent;


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nevertheless it is impossible to read it out loud in a Scottish dialect if the text is not written in a

Scottish dialect.

As a result, it is now possible to say that this paper is about the differences in the accents of

English of different persons and, for the recordings from Zurich, also about the possible

connection to their native, Swiss German accent.

4.2.Received PronunciationBritish English consists of a lot of local accents all over the country, but also possesses what is

accepted as a standard accent called the Received Pronunciation orthe RP in short.

The term received in this context comes from the fact that this was the accent which was

approved by the upper classes (Gramley und Ptzold 18). Today the RP is also called BBC

Pronunciation (Jones, Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary vi), Non-Regional

Pronunciation (Collins und Mees 3-4) or Standard Southern British (International Phonetic

Association 4) because many linguists, for example the editors of the Cambridge English

Pronouncing Dictionary(Jones, Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary vi), argue that the RP

is archaic.

The RP model-accent was first described by Daniel Jones in the early twentieth century as

that most usually heard in everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons

whose men-folk have been educated at the great public [i.e. expensive and exclusive

fee-paying private] boarding-schools. This pronunciation is also used by a considerable

proportion of those who do not come from the South of England, but who have been

educated at these schools. It is probably accurate to say that a majority of those

members of London society who have had a university education, use either this

pronunciation or a pronunciation not differing very greatly from it. (Jones, An English

Pronouncing Dictionary viii)

Despite this definition by Jones, today the RP is believed to be a mixture of London Speech with

elements from the East Midlands, Middlesex and Essex (Crystal 243-244). It is not certain how

many people in Great Britain actually speak the RP, but there are some estimations. Peter

Trudgill, for example, talks about 3% of the population of Britain (Trudgill) while J.C. Wells tends

to 10% of the population of England (Wells 118). Despite the fact that these numbers are not


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Lukas Tribelhorn 5

based on a quantitative survey, they still show that the people speaking the Received

Pronunciation are a minority in Great Britain.

Wells does however distinguish different varieties of RP. Firstly, the U-RP which is the RP of the

upper classes; although there are several different accents comprised in U-RP, they are all

connected through the social characteristics. Secondly the Adoptive RP, being the variety

spoken by adults who did not grow up speaking RP, but who adopted or at least attempt to

adopt RP. Then there is Near-RP, which refers to any accent which is not included in the

definition of RP but nevertheless still includes very little regional pronunciations with which it

would be able to localize the speakers provenance. Finally, there are lots of varieties in RP

which are not named or strictly defined but which still differ from the standard RP. This list

shows that even standard varieties can be divided into small sub-varieties, as every person

speaks a different variety (Wells, Accents of English 2: The British Isles 279-301).

4.2.1. VowelsVowels are articulated by putting the articulators

far enough apart to allow the airflow to exit

unhindered, which is called an open

approximation. The different vowels of the RP

are usually displayed in a Cardinal Vowel Chart.

These charts feature two dimensions which are

from Front over Central to Back (from left to

right) and from Close over Close-mid and Open-

mid to Open (downwards). These positions on the

chart do signalise the place of articulation. Everything

that is outside of this vowel space is a consonant, since

there will no longer be open approximation which defines a vowel (Davenport und Hannahs 39-

43). Vowels appear as either monophthongs or diphthongs. A monophthong is a normal vowel

with a fixed position, whereas a diphthong is a gliding vowel and starts in one place and moves

to another. For example the vowels in low, loud, lied and lane are diphthongs.

Fig. 1. Cardinal Vowel Chart for Received

Pronunciation, . Wikipedia. 02. January2008. 26. November 2013

.


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Lukas Tribelhorn 6

4.2.2. ConsonantsConsonants are divided

into many sub groups

and ordered in a table

with the two

dimensions of the place,

where the consonant is

articulated, and the

manner in which it is

articulated. This helps a

lot when working with

phonetic sources, as the name of the consonant gives all the information needed.

Where the symbols appear in pairs, the one to the left represents an unvoiced consonant and

the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.

4.3.Different dialects of Swiss GermanSwitzerland is famous for its many languages. Switzerland has four major languages as well as

numerous dialects. Although the focus for the possible connection between the English

pronunciation and a native dialect lies on Zurich German, the two other dialects will be briefly

described as well.

4.3.1. Basel GermanVery typical for Basel German, concerning the consonants, are the aspirated plosives [k, p, t]

which can for example be seen in the pronunciation of the Swiss German word Kind (child).

Today these aspirated plosives can only be seen in Basel, where they are dissolving, and in Chur.

Another special pronunciation is that of the /r/-phoneme. It was mostly pronounced [] as this

was influenced by the French, but today most of the people use the [] which is much more

common in other Swiss German dialects as well. Basel German also has or had many soft

consonants as for example in Dag (day) in contrast to Tag in most of the other dialects or

/utt/ (to play football, derives from shoot) in contrast to /tutt/ in Zurich German

(Wikimedia Foundation).

Fig. 2. Consonant Chart for the Received Pronunciation, Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia. 25.

November 2013. 26. November 2013 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation>.


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Lukas Tribelhorn 7

Concerning the vowels, many of them get shortened or lengthened depending on the context

they are used in. The vowels get lengthened if they are before a short consonant or, if the word

is not lent from another language, also before an /r/. Shortening happens for example with

most vowels before a long consonant (Wikimedia Foundation).

Interestingly Basel German is a branch of the Low Alemannic German to which also the dialects

spoken in Alsace, Allgu and northern Voralberg belong. It is mainly distinguished from High

Alemannic by the retention of the Germanic /k/ in Low Alemannic. Furthermore it is

distinguished from Swabian by the retention of the Middle High German monophthongs as for

example in Huus (house) (Wikimedia Foundation).

4.3.2. Grisons GermanAs in Basel German the aspirated plosives / k, p, t/ are quite common in most parts of

Grisons. The /r/-phoneme is also pronounced // as in most Swiss German dialects. Very typical

for Grisons German is the // which can for example be seen in the Grisons German

pronunciation of /mi/ (we) (Wikimedia Foundation).

Grisons German is a branch of High Alemannic, to which most of the Swiss dialects, as well as

the ones from southern Baden-Wrttemberg, the Upper Rhine (which is part of the Alsace) and

southern Voralberg, do belong. It is mainly distinguished with the pronunciation of Kalt as

/alt/ and not /kalt/ as in the dialects belonging to the Low Alemannic branch (Wikimedia

Foundation).

4.3.3. Zurich GermanThis Cardinal Vowel Chart of Zurich German,

which was published in the Journal of the

International Phonetic Association, shows

several differences between the Zurich German

and the Received Pronunciation.

Negotiated in this chart are the three vowels / ,

, / which are, according to Fleischer and

Schmid, about to disappear. In fact, the subject

of Fleischer and Schmids research did not

Fig. 3. Cardinal Vowel Chart of Zurich German, Fleischer,

Jrg und Stephan Schmid. Zurich German. Journal of

the International Phonetic Association 36 (2006).


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produce them. Furthermore, this chart only displays the phonemes but no allophones (Fleischer

und Schmid 246-248).

However, there is quite a big difference between the phonemes used in RP and the ones used in

Zurich German. For example the phonemes /, , , , / are completely missing in the Zurich

German dialect. The vowels /y, , o, , / do exist in Zurich German but not in RP, /e/ is closer

in Zurich German than in RP and the vowel // is more open than in RP. Finally the last two

vowels: /, / are both more central than in RP.

The Consonant Chart above shows the differences between the existing vowels in Zurich

German and in RP. The most striking feature of the Zurich German consonants is, that there are

no voiced obstruents at all. In contrast to RP, where the vowels /b, d, g, v, z, / are all voiced,

these are all, along with // which does not exist in RP, voiceless in Zurich German. Obstruents

are all plosives, all affricates and all fricatives, so all vowels which are created by obstructing the

airflow with the articulators either in complete closure or close approximation (Davenport

und Hannahs 18).Another difference are the dental consonants, which are completely missing in most of the

German varieties, such as in Zurich German for example. In return the velar consonants /x, /

are missing in the Received Pronunciation. The only affricate which the two languages have in

common is the /t/. In RP, there is just one additional affricate which is the /d/, whereas the

Zurich German has the additional consonants /pf, ts, kx/. Interestingly, the nasals and the lateral

approximants are the same in both, Zurich German and the Received Pronunciation. The last

difference between the two languages are the approximants which are /, j/ in Zurich Germanand /r, j, w/ in RP.

Fig. 4. Consonant Chart of Zurich German, Fleischer, Jrg und Stephan Schmid. Zurich German. Journal of the

International Phonetic Association 36 (2006).


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Zurich German, like Grisons German, belongs to the High Alemannic German dialects

(Wikimedia Foundation).

4.4.The International Dialects of English ArchiveThe International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA) is a huge online archive for phonetic

recordings. It was created in 1997 as the first online archive of primary-source recordings of

various English dialects and accents from all over the world. The archive offers free access to

recordings from more than a hundred different countries, as well as some special collections

ranging from RP-recordings and Holocaust survivors to native speakers pronouncing place

names, people names and idioms from famous plays.

In search of a standard text for the recordings, the IDEAs text has proved to be optimal and very

helpful. The standard text used, Comma gets a Cure, features all of the words of the Standard

lexical sets, defined by J.C. Wells (Wells 127-167), together with some of the most common

words and some words which could be considered shibboleths for non-native speakers. This

short text includes the most important vowels and consonants of the English language and gives

a very good resource for all kind of phonetic work (International Dialects of English Archive). It

can be found in the appendix on page II.


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5. MethodIn order to find the subjects, it proved to be ideal to ask several Kantonsschulen (Academic

Upper Secondary Schools) if some of their students would want to participate. This provides

good resources as they should all be on the same level of English, because they are, or should

be, on the same level of education.

The number of ten recordings was also chosen because it provides a good basis with not too

many to analyse, but also not just one, as this would not provide any information about how the

people speak but just about how this particular person speaks.

The subject, for the first part, had to read aloud the standard text provided by the International

Dialects of English Archive. This text sample is about one page in length and features several

phonetically interesting words and combinations. Then, in the second part of the recording, the

subject had to talk in English about whatever they wanted, as for example their hobbies, future

plans or about their childhood. Finally, in the third part, the subject had to talk in his native

Swiss German dialect about whatever they wanted.

However, this paper will focus on the first part which is more ideal for comparison. The second

and the third part are mainly for the International Dialects of English Archive, as it may be useful

to other phonetic papers or discussions in general.

The next step was to edit the recordings concerning volume, breathing sounds, comments by

the interviewer, ambient noise etc. and furthermore to do a simple, non-phonetic transcription

of the second and third part.

Then, the most time intensive part, which was the analysis of the recordings and the

formulating of the results, followed. The analysis was done by listening to the recordings and

writing down the phonetic transcription and/or phonetic-like comments on a choice of words.

Therefore, not all of the words are phonetically transcribed, but they are marked and

commented on with near-phonetic transcription for further research, if they turn out to be

important for the discussion. These words were chosen because either they were on the list of

standard lexical sets by J.C. Wells (Wells 127-167) or they were pronounced strangely by most of

the subjects, or they were in some other way interesting.

To get some overall results, the outcome was then compared with these of the other cantons.As it would go beyond the scope of this paper to discuss all of the approx. 100 transcribed


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words, the most interesting, were then chosen for the discussion of the results. Most

interesting inthis case means, where the pronunciation is identical for all cantons but with big

discrepancies between the recordings and the Received Pronunciation or where there are big

discrepancies between the different varieties.

Finally, for the recordings made in Zurich, the features which differ from the RP were attempted

to be connected to one or multiple features in Zurich German. If the result is, with a high

probability, not connected to any feature, the alternative cause was sought. This has just been

done with Zurich German due to the fact that there are no sources discussing the phonetics of

any other Swiss German dialect. To work out the phonetic properties of the other dialects on

the basis of these recordings would have gone far beyond the scope of this paper. It would,

however, provide a very interesting and extensive basis for further researches.


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6. ResultsIf there is no result in the following table, it is neither necessarily correct nor wrong. No result

just means that it did not stand out or that it unfortunately was missed by the analyst. The X

as a result means that it did stand out in some strange, not identifiable way.

The case where there are more results than recordings occurred if either the subject corrects

itself or the word appeared multiple times in the text.

As there is generally no wrong pronunciation in phonetics, here the term wrong is not used in

its traditional meaning but rather as different from the Received Pronunciation.

6.1.BaselThese recordings were made on the 25

th of June 2013 at the Kantonsschule Kirschgarten in

Basel. All of the subjects were students, between 16 and 17 years old and grew up in the canton

of Basel and mostly near Basel itself. Ten recordings have been made and analysed.

Table 1: Summarised results of the recordings made in Basel on the 25.06.13

Word Basel Count

well well(1)

veterinary veterinary(5), X(2), verentary (1)

daily deli (1)

old ld (1)

zoo so(1), zoo(1), zu(1)

deserted desert(1), desert-ed(1), deserded(1), disert(1)

happy hpi(9), correct(1)

start stat(7), correct(3)

superb wrongly stressed(2), superb(1), suburb(1)

North no(5), nos(2), correct(2), nos(1)

near nea(7), correct(3)

Duke dk(1), duk(1)

area aria(4), iria(1), e(1), (1), correct(1)

bowl powl(1), X(1), baul(1)

porridge portidge(1), purtidge(1)

mirror mirro(1), X(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 13

washed west(1), wash(1)

face correct(9), fez(1)

hurry correct(1)

fleece correct(9), fleeci(1)picked picked(1)

kit correct(9), kid(1)

headed hided(2), heted(1), heard(1)

woman wman(1)

goose correct(), goes(), gouz(1), gs(1)

official offisial(3), wrongly stressed(2), X(1)

letter lette(7), correct(2),t(1)

implied implid(1)

animal nimal(1)

suffering wrongly stressed(1)

foot fut(4), fud(2), correct(2), ft(1), fud(1)

mouth maf(5), correct(4), m(1)

disease desire(1), dises(1)

expect espect(1), except(1), ecept(1)

dog dog(2)

sentimental wrongly stressed(1)

itchy intchy(1), itchy(1)

strut correct(7), strut(1), strut(1), stt(1)

lunatic wrongly stressed(3), lunatid(2), luntical(1), luntic(1), lunantic(1), lntk(1),

luniac(1), luntik(1), lunetic(1)

unsanitary unsanitary(3), unsantary(3), unsernitary(1)

goose's goos'(4), correct(2), duss(1), goos's(1), gouz's(1)

Harrison H/errison(1)

kept kept(1), kipt)

Comma correct(), X(1), km(1)

thought correct(7), though(1), fog the(1), f(1), fu(1), f(1)

choice correct(9), chose(1)

huge hd(2), hud(1), hjug(1)

trap trep(1), trap(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 14

idea di(1), di(1), X(1)

stroking strking(1), struking(1), struking(1), starking(1)

lower lauer(5), lour(1)

palm palm(6), pallm(1), plaim(1), plm(1), plm(1)singing signing(1), singing(1)

tune tun(1)

administered administered(2), admistered(2), administrated(2), administtred(1),

adminstred(1), admit(1), administrd(1), wrongly stressed(1)

ether id(5), ed(), e(1), et(1)

futile fjutl(3), correct(1), fjutil(1), fjutil(1), futil(1), ftil(1), ftli(1),

began begn(1)

bath b(6), b(), b(1), bth(1)

Sarah X(1)

bathe b(4), be(1), b(1), correct(1), b(1), b(1), baith(1)

wiped wipd(3), piped(1), correct(1)

cloth clothe(5), correct(2), cl(1)

laid ld(1)

confirmed confirmed(1)

diagnosis diagnosis(3), diagnose(1), correct(1)

immediately immediatly(4)

remembered remembered(1)

effective wrongly stressed(4)

required recured(1), required(1)

measure msur(2), mesur(1), ....(1)

medicine medicin(6), medizin(2)

course ks(2), corse(1)

might mit(1)

either aither(1), either(1), d(1)

cost coast(2), cost(1)

penicillin penizillin(4), penicillin(1), penicilin(1), correct(1)

can't cn't(3), cn't(1)

millionaire millionairy(2)

cure kur(1), c(1), k(1), k(j)(1)


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6.2.ChurThese recordings were made on the 13

thof September 2013 at the Bndner Kantonsschule in

Chur. All of the subjects were students, between 16 and 17 years old and grew up in Grisons.

However, some of them spoke Romansh in Kindergarten and primary school and most them are

now in an Italian/German bilingual class. Eleven recordings have been made and analysed.

Table 2: Summarised results of the recordings made in Chur on the 13.09.13

Word Count

well well(2)

veterinary veterinary(8), vetenary(1), veterninary(1), veternary(1)

zoo so(2), zu(2), zo(1), zo(1), X(1)

deserted deserted(4), desert(2)

territory terathy(1)

happy hpi(10), hpi(1)


job jop(1)

superb spb(1), sjupb(1), superb(1), wrongly stressed(1), supperb(1), spb(1)

North no(4), correct(3), X(), nos(1), nof(1)

near correct(6), nea(5)

Duke dk(1), dk(t)(1)

area i(1), area(1), (1), wrongly stressed(1)

liking licking(1)

bowl bol(2), boul(1), baul(1)

porridge prtid(1), prridge(1), pid(1)

mirror X(1)

face correct(11)

hurry X(1)

put pud(1)

fleece correct(9), fleeci(2)

kit correct(11)

headed hided(3), headed(1)

woman wman(1)

goose correct(8), goes(4), gouz(2), goosi(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 16

official wrongly stressed(2)

letter lette(10), correct(1), letter(1)

implied implided(1)

rare rar(1), rr(1), r(1)foot fut(4), fud(4), correct(1), fud(1), fut(d)(1)

mouth maf(6), correct(4), mas(1)

disease dsi(1)

dog dog(1)

sentimental sentimetal(1)

feel fl(1)

itchy correct(1)

strut correct(7), strt(1), stru:t(1), strat(1), strud(1), strt(1)

lunatic wrongly stressed(7), lntid(2), lntik(1), luntc(1)

unsanitary unsanitary(6), junsanitary(2), unsan-natery(1)

goose'sgoos's(3), correct(3), goes'(2), gs(1), goes(1), gus(1), X(1), guse's(1),

goose's(1), goosi(1), gouz(1)

Comma correct(8), comm(1), comm(1), cmma(1)

thought correct(7), ft(3), through(1), thght(1)

choice correct(10), voice(1)

huge hd(1), hud(1), hjug(1), X(1), jud(1)

trap trp(1)

different difference(1), different(1)

gently genty(1)

stroking stk(1), strocking(1)

lower lauer(1), lover(1)

palm palm(4), plm(1), pelm(1), plm (1), plm(1), plm(1), plm(1), correct(1)

singing signing(2)

tune tune(1)

administeredadministered(3), admistered(2), administreted(1), administerd(1),

administrated(1), admistred(1)

ether id(3), d(2), t(1), e(1), ed(1), (1), it(1), i(1),

futile

fjutil(2), futil(1), fjutl(1), X(1), futl(1), fjutil(1), fd(1), fjuitil(1), fjutil(1),

fjutl(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 17

bath b(), correct(), b(), b(1), b(1), b(1), b(1),

Sarah wrongly stressed(1)

bathe b(3), ba(3), b(), ba(1), b(1), b(1)

wiped wipd(1), correct(1), whispered(1)cloth clothe(4), correct(2), clot(1), clofe(1), kl(1), close(1)

laid leid(2)

confirmed confirmed(3), confrmd(1), confirmed(1), confrmed(1)

diagnosis diagnosis(2), diagnsis(1), diagnossi(1), dianis(1), correct(1), wrongly stressed(1)

immediately imiatly (1)

effective wrongly stressed(3), effisent(1)

required X(2)

measure misur(2), X(1)

medicine medicine(8), medici(1)

warned wrned(2), wrned(1)

course crse(1), cse(1), corse(1), crse(1)

treatment trtmnt(1), treating(1),

might night, might

expensive wrongly stressed(1)

either either(2), eid(1)

penicillin pencillin(5), pencillian(2), wrongly stressed(1)

can't cn't(3), cn't(1)

paying playing(1)

millionaire million(1)

lawyer X(1(

cure cu(1), k(u)(1), cju(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 18

6.3.ZurichThese recordings were made on the 17

thof September 2013 at the Kantonsschule Hottingen in

Zurich. All of the subjects were students, between 16 and 18 years old and grew up in the

canton of Zurich and mostly near Zurich itself. Ten recordings have been made and nine

recordings have been analysed. One recording was not analysed because the file was damaged.

Table 3: Summarised results of the recordings made in Zurich on the 17.09.13

Word Count

well well(1)

story story(1)

veterinary

veterinary(3), veterany(2), veterian(1), vetrinary(1), vetariny(1), verynary(1),

vetrnary(1),

nurse nrse(1), nrse(1), nys(1)

zoo zo(1), zu(1)

deserted deserted(3), desert(2)

territory X(1)

happy hpi(9), hpi(1)


superb supwerb(1), spb(1), superb(1), super-b(1), correct(1)

practice practic(1)

North no(7), no(2)

near nea(6), correct(3)

bowl baul(2), bul(1)

porridge purridge(1), prridge(1), prid(1), prridge(1)

mirror X(1)

washed wshed(1)

face correct(8), fes(1)

fleece correct(9)

jacket acket(1)

kit correct(), kit(1)

headed hided(1)

woman wman(1), woman(1), wman(1),

goose correct(7), gouz(1), goes(1), dus(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 19

official wrongly stressed(4)

letter lette(7), correct(2)

implied implid(1)

suffering srfering(1), sffering(1)rare rre(1)

foot correct(5), fut(2), fut(1), ft(1)

mouth correct(4), mas(2), maf(2), mt(1)

disease disearse(1), desire(1)

surprising surprisng(1)

sentimental wrongly stressed(1)

itchy correct(2), intchy(1)

strut correct(6), strud(1), strut(1), strt(1)

lunatic wrongly stressed(7), lunetk(1), lnic(1), lnnc(1)

unsanitary unsanitary(4), nsanitary(1), junsaritary(1)

goose's goos'(4), goos's(2), correct(2), gouz's(1), goose was(1)

owner auner(1)

kept kipt(1)

calling kalling(1)

Comma correct(6), kum(1), comma(1), comm(1)

thought correct(6), ft(1), dt(1), thght(1), st(1), tt(1), td(1)

choice correct(9)

huge hud(1), jud(1), jud(1)

tried tricked(1)

stroking struking(2), stronki(1)

lower lauers(1), correct(1)

palm palm(4), plm(2), plm(1), pm(1), plm(1)

tune tune(1)

administered administered(3), correct(2), administrated(1), administrised(1)

ether id(1), eter(1), d(1), d(1), id(1), i(1), d(1), correct(1), d(1)

efforts fforts(1), wrongly stressed(1), ffs(1)

futileftil(1), fytil(1), fjutil(1), futil(1), futil(1), f(j)til(1), fjudil(1), fjutil(1), ftil(1),

ftil(1)

bath correct(3), b(), b(1), b(1), b(1), b(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 20

Sarah sr(1)

bathe b(), b(), b(1), b(1), b(1), b(1), beis(1), b(1), b(1)

wiped wipd(4), whispered(1)

cloth clothe(5), close(2), kl(1), kl(1)laid ld(1)

confirmed confirmed(3)

diagnosis diagnosis(8), correct(1)

immediately immediatly(1)

remembered rembered(1)

effective wrongly stressed(2)

required requird(1), requird(1), reqaierd(1)

measure measure(2)

medicine medicine(5), correct(2)

this this(1)

course curs(2), ks(1)

expensive wrongly stressed(1)

either ither(1), either(1), correct(1), ither(1)

cost coast(1)

penicillin penizillin(3), wrongly stressed(2), pencillin(2)

can't cn't(3), cn't(1), can't(1)

imagine wrongly stressed(2)

lawyer lawer(3)

cure cur(1)


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Lukas Tribelhorn 21

7. Discussion of the Results7.1.Different pronunciations appearing in the results

This part focuses on a selection of words that are in some way interesting. These words will be

looked at and discussed in detail. However, the connections between these features and the

Zurich German dialect will not yet be shown. This will happen in chapter 7.2.

Once more, as there is no wrongpronunciation, this term will be avoided. Instead, either the

term strange, differentor interestingwill be used.

Furthermore, as this paper focuses on the differences in pronunciation, it will not have a look at

the wrongly stressedones, although they are also listed in the results.

NURSE /ns/

NURSE is one of the words which represent a standard lexical set defined by J.C. Wells (Wells

137-139). This particular set comprises those words which contain the stressed vowel // in

RP which would for example be hurt, church, curve, turn, spur, occurred, burnt, murder, shirt,

jerk, verb, earth, work, and so on (Wells 137-139).

This vowel has no traditional name, due to the fact that it is only a few centuries old. It merged

from the Middle English /i/, // an /u/ followed by the consonant /r/. These have, in two steps,

merged into an, often r-coloured, open-mid central vowel. However this NurseMerger did not,

or only partially, occur in most Scottish and Irish accents (Wells 199-203).

In only three of the 30 recordings did strangepronunciations occur. All three recordings with

strange pronunciation were made in Zurich, which can either be a coincidence or because of the

dialect of Zurich. The pronunciations /nrse/, /nrse/, /nys/ are all quite far away from the

Received Pronunciation with //, which is a close-mid central rounded vowel, //, which is

open-mid front rounded, and /y/ which is close front rounded (Armstrong).

SUPERB /sju'pb/

SUPERB for instance is not from a standard lexical set but is interesting because it occurred in

Zurich and Chur, but not in Basel.

For SUPERB, several different pronunciations occurred in Zurich and Chur. However, it was

mostly pronounced correctly in Basel. There are four different pronunciations in Zurich, which


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Lukas Tribelhorn 22

are /supwerb/, /spb/, /superb/ and /super-b/, and six different pronunciations in Chur

which are /spb/, /sjupb/, /superb/, wrongly stressed, /supperb/ and /spb/. As a matter

of fact only the pronunciation /superb/ occurred twice, once in Zurich and once in Chur.

AREA /er/

AREA is not a standard lexical set, yet is still interesting because of its occurrence in the different

cantons.

AREA occurred in different variations in the recordings from Basel and Chur, it did, however not

stand out at all in the recordings from Zurich. In Basel, there are four different pronunciations

which are /aria/, /iria/, /e/ and //. In this case /aria/ occurred four times. In Chur there are

three different pronunciations which are /i/, /area/, // as well as one wrongly stressed,

yet none of these occurred twice. As highlighted before, unusually nothing stands out in the

recordings from Zurich.

PORRIDGE /prd/

PORRIDGE is not one of the standard lexical sets. However, the fact that the differences

occurred more often in Zurich than in Chur and Basel makes it interesting.

For PORRIDGE, there are four different variations in Zurich and just two, respectively three

different versions in Basel and Chur. In the recordings from Zurich, the existing variations are

/porridge/, /prridge/, /prid/ and /prridge/, which all occur once. In Basel, the two

variations /portidge/ and /purtidge/ were found and in Chur the three variations /prtid/,

/prridge/, /pid/ occurring once each.

WOMAN /wmn/

A strange pronunciation of WOMAN also occurred more often in Zurich than in Chur and Basel

and it belongs to the standard lexical set of FOOT.

In Zurich, three different variations occurred, which are /wman/, /woman/ and /wman/; each

of these occurred once. In Basel, as well as in Chur, the variation /wman/ occurred once per

canton.

The variation /wman/ appeared regularly once in every canton, however Zurich provides two

additional variations.


26/42


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Lukas Tribelhorn 24

MOUTH is mostly pronounced correctly in Zurich, but as with FOOT, there occurred some

different versions for Basel and Chur. In Basel, the most usual pronunciations are /maf/, which

appeared in five recordings, /m/, which appeared in one recording and the correct

pronunciation in four recordings. The variations in Chur are /maf/, which appeared in six

recordings, /mas/, which occurred in one recording and the correct pronunciation in four

recordings. The most common in Zurich are /mas/, appearing in two recordings, /maf/,

appearing in two recordings, /mt/, appearing in one recording and four times the correct

pronunciation.

So overall the variation /maf/ appeared in 13 of 30 recordings, which is almost 45%. However,

in twelve recordings it was pronounced correctly. However the variation is not the diphthong

but the last consonant which seems hard to pronounce. This result suggests a connection with

either Swiss German in general, or with all three dialects.

STRUT /strt/

STRUT, as mentioned before, is also one of the standard lexical sets. It comprises the words with

the vowel // as for example cup, cut, suck, hum, run, pulse, butter, study, number, mustnt,

love , stomach, money, onion, southern, tongue, and so on. The // vowel, which traditionally is

called short U, derives mostly from the Middle English /u/, but also sometimes from /o /. It

has moved away from the FOOT vowel in the FOOT-STRUT split which was mentioned in the

paragraph about the lexical set FOOT. (Wells 131-132).

This word is usually pronounced correctly in all three cantons, although many different versions

appear in Chur. In Basel and Zurich, three different variations appeared. For Basel, these are

/strut/, /strut/ and /stt/ which all appeared once and in seven recordings the pronunciation

was correct. For Zurich, the three different versions are /strud/, /strut/ and /strt/ which all

appeared once and six recordings with a correct pronunciation. In Chur, the correct

pronunciation appeared seven times, but there are five different variations as well. These are

/strt/, /strut/, / strat/, /strud/, /strt/. The version /strut/ occurred in all of the three

recordings.

THOUGHT /t/

THOUGHT is again one of the standard lexical sets. This set comprises the words which have the

vowel /()/. This includes for example the words taught, caught, naughty, slaughter, brought,


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Lukas Tribelhorn 25

sauce, cause, autumn, laundry, hawk, law, talk, stalk, water, and so on. The THOUGHT vowel has

several origins, among which there are the Middle English diphthongs /a/ and //

(Wells 144-146).

The THOUGHT vowel, the monophthong /()/, emerged from the two Middle English

diphthongs /a/ and // around the beginning of the sixteenth century during the so called

THOUGHT Monophthonging (Wells 191-192).

THOUGHT is mostly pronounced correctly in all three cantons, with six different variations in

Zurich, five in Basel and three in Chur. The variations in Zurich are /ft/, /dt/, /thght/, /st/,

/tt/ and /td/ which all occurred once. The variations in Basel are / though/, /fog the/, /f/,

/fu/and /f/ which also occurred once each. Finally, these in Chur are /ft/, /through/ and

/thght/. The variation /ft/ occurred once each in Zurich and Chur.

LOWER /l*/

LOWER is not a standard lexical set, yet it is still interesting due to the occurrence of similar

varieties in all of the three cantons.

For LOWER, two different varieties appeared in Basel and Chur, and just one variety in Zurich. In

Basel, the variety /lauer/ occurred five times and /lour/ once. In Chur the varieties /lauer/ and

/lover/ both occurred just once. In Zurich, the variety /lauers/ occurred once and it was

pronounced correctly once. The variety /lauer/ respectively /lauers/ occurred seven times in

total, unevenly distributed over the three cantons.

PALM /pm/

The standard lexical set PALM contains those words with the vowel //as for example calm,

father, bra, hurrah, etc. but also Bach, roulade, sonata, plaza, lager, and so on. As seen in the

examples, this standard lexical set includes only a few really common words; however most of

the PALM words are borrowed from other languages as the second part of the examples shows.

The PALM vowel derived from either the Middle English /au/ or a lengthened /a/

(Wells 142-144).

There are several different varieties in all of the cantons for the PALM vowel. In both Basel and

in Zurich, five varieties occurred. In Basel, these are /palm/, which occurred in six recordings,

and /pallm/, /plaim/, /plm/ and /plm/ which occurred once each. In Zurich, these are /palm/,


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Lukas Tribelhorn 26

which occurred in four recordings, /plm/, which occurred twice, and /plm/, /pm/and /plm/

which occurred once each. In Chur however, seven different varieties occurred, as well as one

correct pronunciation. These seven varieties are /palm/, which occurred in four recordings, and

/plm/, /pelm/, /p

lm/, /plm/, /plm/ and /plm/ which all occurred once.

Over all three cantons, the variety where PALM is pronounced too explicitoccurred 14 times.

The /plm/ version occurred at least once per canton.

ETHER /i*/

ETHER is not a standard lexical set, but it stands out because there are many different varieties

in all of the three cantons.

ETHER occurred in eight different variations and once correctly in Zurich, in four different

variations in Basel and in eight different variations in Chur. The variations in Zurich are /i d/,

/eter/, /d/, /d/, /id/, /i/, /d/and /d/ which all occurred just once. The variations in

Basel are /ed/, which occurred twice, and /id/, /e/and /et/ which all occurred once. Finally,

the variations in Chur are /id/, which occurred in three recordings, /d/, which occurred twice,

and /t/, /e/, /ed/, //, /it/, /i/ which all occurred once.

All variations of all of the cantons are different, except the variation /id /, which appeared in

every canton at least once, and the variation /d/ which occurred in Zurich once and in Chur

twice.

BATH /b/

The lexical set BATH comprises the words with the vowel //. It is only an autonomous set

because in dialects other than RP, there are differences between the vowel in PALM, BATH and

START. However, in RP these all contain the vowel //. The words staff, giraffe, path, glass,nasty, rascal, draught, craft, blast, past, and many more are generally being comprised in the

BATH set (Wells 133-135).

BATH has some different variations in all three cantons. It has been pronounced correctly in

three recordings from Zurich and two recordings from Chur. The variations in Zurich are /b /,

which occurred twice, as well as /b/, /b/, /b/and /b/ which all occurred once. In Chur,

the variations /b/ and /b/ each occurred twice, and the variations /b/, /b/, /b/and


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Lukas Tribelhorn 27

/b/ occurred once. In Basel, the variation /b/ occurred in six recordings and the variations

/b/ and /b:/ each occurred twice.

In conclusion, the variation /b/ occurred twice in each Zurich and Chur, the variation /b/

occurred at least once in each canton and the variation /b/ occurred once in Zurich and once

in Chur.

BATHE /be/

BATHE is an example for the standard lexical set FACE. This set comprises those words whose

citation form has the vowel /e/. Other examples for this set are tape, late, safe, vague, wave,

name, waste, bacon, lady, wait, main, day, obey and many more. The traditional name of the

FACE vowel is long A and it derives in most cases via the Great Vowel shift from the Middle

English vowel /a/, or in consequence of the FACE Merger from /i i/ (Wells 141-142). During

the FACE Merger, the monophthongal vowel /a/ shifted to // by the beginning of the

seventeenth century; simultaneously the vowels /i/ and /i/ lost their diphthongal quality and

became the vowel //. By the eighteenth century, the merged vowel // took on a closer

quality and became the /e/ vowel which later took on a diphthongal quality aga in and was now

similar to todays /e/ (Wells 194-196).

In Zurich, the variations /b/and /b/ were each seen twice, together with the variations

/b/, /b/, /b:/, /b/, /beis/, /b/ and /b/ which all occurred once. In the recordings

from Basel, the variation /b/ occurred in four instances accompanied by /be/, /b/, /b:/,

/b/, /baith/ which all occurred once, and one correct pronunciation. The result in Chur shows

the different variations b and ba, which both occurred in three recordings, as well as /b/,

/ba:/, /b/and /b/ which occurred once each.

The variation /b/ occurred in all three sets of recordings, however not many variations did

appear in more than one canton.

WIPED /wapt/

WIPED is not a standard lexical set, yet it is still interesting.

In Zurich, the variation /wipd/ occurred in four recordings together with a variation

/whispered/, where the subject has misread the word. In Basel, the variation /wipd/ occurred in

three recordings, together with a correct pronunciation in one of the recordings and a misread


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Lukas Tribelhorn 28

variation /piped/ in another recording. Lastly in Chur the variation /wipd/ occurred in one

recording with a correct pronunciation in one of the recordings as well as the again misread

variation /whispered/.

Interestingly, one subject per canton has misread this word, so there are three variations due to

missing concentration. Even more interesting is the fact that this word was misread similarly in

two of the cantons. One subject of each Zurich and Chur has read /whispered/ instead of

WIPED. The variation /wipd/ also occurred quite often in all of the three cantons.

CONFIRMED /knfmd/

CONFIRMED is not comprised in any of the standard lexical sets. Yet the occurrence of similar

varieties in all three cantons makes it interesting.

In Chur, the explicit version /confirmed/ occurred in three recordings. Three different

varieties, which are /confrmd/, /confirmed/ and /conformed/ also occurred once each. The

explicit version, /confirmed/ also occurred in three recordings from Zurich and in one

recording from Basel. Other varieties occurred neither in Zurich nor in Basel.

DIAGNOSIS /dagnss/

DIAGNOSIS is interesting for the same reasons as the above discussed CONFIRMED. It is also not

comprised in any of the standard lexical sets.

In Chur, the explicit variation /diagnosis/ occurred twice, together with several different

varieties, which are /diagnsis/, /diagnossi/ and /dianis/ and occurred once each, and one

correct and one wrongly stressed pronunciation. In Basel, the explicit version occurred in

three recordings. One other subject pronounced it correctly and in one recording the variety

/diagnose/ occurred. Finally, in Zurich, the explicit version occurred in eight recordings andone subject pronounced it correctly.

IMMEDIATELY /midjtl/

IMMEDIATELY is not comprised in a standard lexical set but is interesting for the same reasons

as the above discussed CONFIRMED and DIAGNOSIS.

In Chur, the only occurring variety is /imiatly/, which occurred once. In the other two cantons

the explicit version occurred once in Zurich and four times in Basel.


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Lukas Tribelhorn 29

For the last three words CONFIRMED, DIAGNOSIS and IMMEDIATELY, the explicit version

occurred in all three cantons and Chur always had some additional varieties.

COURSE /ks/

COURSE is comprised in the standard lexical set FORCE. This set comprises those words with the

vowel //as for example board, court, resource, and so on. The FORCE vowel usually derives

from the Middle English long // via the Great Vowel Shift. However, rarely it derives from the

Middle English /o/ or /u/ (Wells 160-162).

The different varieties /crse/, /cse/, /corse/ and /crse/ occurred once each in Chur. In

Zurich, only two different varieties occurred, which are /ks/ and /curs/, whereas the latter

appeared in two recordings. In Basel, the variety /ks/ occurred twice and the variety /corse/

appeared once.

The varieties in Chur did not appear in any other canton, but the variety /ks/ appeared in both

Zurich and Basel.

TREATMENT /tritmnt/

TREATMENT is also not comprised in a standard lexical set, yet it is interesting as the results are

similar to these of the COURSE set.

In Chur, the two different varieties /trtmnt/ and /treating/ appeared once each. In both of the

other two cantons, no word stands out concerning pronunciation. The pronunciation /treating/

is probably misread due to the speakerslack of concentration.

EITHER /a*/

EITHER is not in one of the standard lexical sets; however it is regularly discussed as a uniquefeature whose pronunciation says nothing about the overall pronunciation of a person. It is

independent from the accent a person usually has and varies from person to person. The most

frequently used vowels are either /i/ or /a/ or, in some cases, something between these two

vowels.

In Zurich, the four different varieties, which each occurred once, are /ither/, /either/, / ither /

and a correct pronunciation. The three different varieties, each occurring once, in Basel are


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Lukas Tribelhorn 30

/aither/, /either/ and /d/. Finally in Chur, the variety /either/ occurred twice and the variety

/eid/ occurred once. The variety /either/ occurred at least once in each of the three cantons.

CURE /kj*/

CURE, again, is one of the standard lexical sets and comprises some of the words with the

diphthong // as for example moor, poor, ensure, mature, gourmet, tourist, plural and several

more. The origin of the // vowel is, in the most cases, the Middle English /o/, /iu/or /u/.

The four different varieties in Basel are /kur/, /c/, /k/ and /k(j)/ which all occurred once.

The three different varieties in Chur are /cu/, /k(u)/ and /cju/ which all occurred once. Lastly

the only variation from Zurich is /cur/ which also appeared just once.

None of the varieties of CURE occurred multiple times.

7.2.Possible causes for the differences in pronunciation in the recordings from ZurichIn this chapter, the possible causes for the differences in pronunciation are sought, in order to

determine, whether or not further research about this topic would be rewarding. This has just

been done with the recordings from Zurich, as it is the only Swiss German dialect with sufficient

phonetic data available.

7.2.1. Substitution of non-existent vowels and consonantsVowels which do exist in the RP but do not exist in Zurich German have to be learned or

somehow substituted with other vowels which do exist.

This can be seen in, for example, NURSE. As the open-mid central unrounded RP-vowel // does

not exist in Zurich German, it has to be substituted with another vowel. The three vowels, which

were used in the recordings are /, , y/. Interestingly the vowel // does not exist in ZurichGerman but is used to substitute another non-existent vowel. Zurich German // is near but

rounded and Zurich German /y/ is even further away and also rounded. The best substitution in

this case, would probably be the vowel // as it is the nearest and unrounded.

A very similar case can be seen in WOMAN and FOOT. Both of these feature the vowel / /,

which is about to disappear in Zurich German. In WOMAN it has been substituted with /, , o/;

yet the vowels /, / are both non-existent in Zurich German and the vowel /o/ is more open


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Lukas Tribelhorn 31

and further away than /u/. In FOOT, however, it has been substituted with /u/, which is, on the

basis of this thesis, logically correct as it is the nearest existent vowel in Zurich German.

Another case, but with a non-existent consonant, can be seen in MOUTH, THOUGHT and ETHER.

All these sets feature the RP-consonant // which does not exist in Zurich German. In MOUTH

and also twice in THOUGHT it has been substituted with /f, s/ which are the nearest existent

consonants. In ETHER, however, it has been substituted with /d, t/ by most of the speakers. This

could indicate that // gets substituted with /f,s/ if the speaker knows the correct pronunciation

but is not able to pronounce it, and it gets substituted with the more explicit version /d, t/ , if

the word is unfamiliar for the speaker.

7.2.2. Missing knowledge or concentrationWords like WIPED, CONFIRMED, DIAGNOSIS, STRUT or IMMEDIATELY are pronounced very

strangely by some of the speakers. For example in STRUT, there occurred a vowel /u/, or in one

case //, instead of the RP-vowel // which is inexistent in Zurich German. The nearest

unrounded vowel in Zurich German, which would probably be the most logical choice, is the

vowel //.

A possible explanation for this could be that when the speaker encounters words which are

unaccustomed for him, they are usually pronounced as they are written, therefore too

explicit. This can be seen in the pronunciation of many words in all three cantons, which

could indicate the independence from the accent but the dependence on the language in

general. This could indicate that, as soon as we feel unaccustomed because we don t know how

to pronounce something, we search a way to get to a pronunciation we know. Hence we

pronounce it as it is written or as we would pronounce it in our native language.

Another interesting case is the word BATHE. In one recording the diphthong /e/ got substituted

by /ei/ and the consonant // got substituted by /s/. Thus the speaker substituted every

unknown vowel or consonant with the nearest possible. All the other variations were

pronounced with a monophthong instead of the diphthong, however, not the nearest possible

monophthong was used, but, in most of the cases, the same monophthong as in BATH.

This indicates that either the speakers were unaware of the difference between BATH and

BATHE, or they were not concentrated and misread or mispronounced BATHE as BATH. The fact

that this occurred in the recordings from Basel and Chur as well, indicates, that it has nothing to


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8. ConclusionThe standard text used for the recordings, discussed in this paper, proved to be ideal, as it

features the Standard lexical sets, defined by J.C. Wells, but also many other words which could

be of interest for any kind of phonetic work. The use of students of the same grade for the

recordings did also prove of value, due to the facts that the students have time, the schools

have rooms for the recordings and most importantly the level of English should be similar.

The results of this paper are quite extensive, yet, they assert no claim for correctness or

completeness, as the recordings were not analysed by a professional but by a student who

worked with phonetics for the first time. The results present many differences in pronunciation

between the speakers of different cantons, but also within a canton. However, as seen in the

discussion, the dialect, together with some other factors, as for example the knowledge of a

speaker, has an influence on the pronunciation of a word. To determine what influence exactly,

the phonetic properties of the Swiss German dialects would have to be formulated first and

would have to be compared to the results as done with the recordings from Zurich. This would,

however, go far beyond the scope of this paper.

However, the result clearly shows that further research is necessary and would be rewarding.

The results did show that there are differences in pronunciation and that some of them, yet not

all of them, are somehow connected to the native dialect a person speaks. Additional, more

detailed research would possibly give very interesting results, which could also be valuable for

teaching the English language, or rather for teaching a near-RP pronunciation.

During the work on this paper, many challenges arose and had to be overcome. The first

challenge was to learn how to work with phonetics and how to do phonetic transcriptions. In

the course of writing the paper many other problems did arise, as for example the search of

subjects to record, the very time-consuming process of analysis, the lack of phonetic

information on most of the Swiss German dialects and also the not always obvious connection

between the pronunciation of English and a speakers native dialect.


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Lukas Tribelhorn 34

Bibliography

Armstrong, Eric. Eric Armstrong's voice & speech source. 20. 11 2013

.

Chambers, Jack und Peter Trudgill. Dialectology. 2. Edition. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Collins, Beverley und Inger Mees. Practical phonetics and phonology: a resource book for

students. Oxon: Routledge, 2003.

Crystal, David. The Stories of English. Penguin, 2005.

Davenport, Mike und S.J. Hannahs. Introducing Phonetics & Phonology. London: Arnold, 1998.

Fleischer, Jrg und Stephan Schmid. Zurich German. Journal of the International Phonetic

Association 36 (2006).

Gramley, Stephan und Kurt Michael Ptzold. Das moderne Englisch. Paderborn: UTB fr

Wissenschaft, 1985.

International Phonetic Association. Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide

to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Jones, Daniel. An English Pronouncing Dictionary. London: Dent, 1917.

. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 18 ed. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Trudgill, Peter. University College London. 12. 08 2000. 07. 10 2013

.

Wells, John Christopher. Accents of English 1: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1982.

. Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia. 16. October 2013. 17. November 2013

.

. Wikipedia. 07. March 2013. 25. November 2013

.


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. Wikipedia. 25. November 2013. 25. November 2013

.

. Wikipedia. 04. October 2013. 25. November 2013

.

. Wikipedia. 23. September 2013. 25. November 2013

.

. Wikipedia. 24. November 2013. 26. November 2013

.


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Lukas Tribelhorn I

AppendixField Recording Guide

INTERNATIONAL DIALECTS OF ENGLISH ARCHIVE

FIELD RECORDING GUIDE

Complete the following and use this as a guide when conducting your interview and

writing up your notes. It is for your use only.

Kontaktinformationen: (der Proband wird komplett anonym bleiben)

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Geschlecht (M fr mnnlich, W fr weiblich): ____

Volkszugehrigkeit: ___________________

Geburtsdatum: _________________

Alter: ____________

Geburtsort: ________________________

Stadt, Kanton, Land wo aufgewachsen: ______________________________

Bildungsstufe: _____________________________

Orte mehr als 80km vom Geburtsort, lnger als 6 Monate als Wohnsitz:

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Momentane Ttigkeit: ___________________________

Muttersprache(n): ______________________________________________________

Andere Faktoren welche den Akzent/Dialekt des Probanden mglicherweise

beeinflusst haben: ______________________________________________________

Datum der Aufnahme: _________________

Name des Interviewenden: __________________________________

Notizen: ______________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________


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Lukas Tribelhorn II

COMMA GETS A CURE

Well, heres a story for you: Sarah Perry was a veterinary nurse who had been

working daily at an old zoo in a deserted district of the territory, so she was very

happy to start a new job at a superb private practice in North Square near the Duke

Street Tower. That area was much nearer for her and more to her liking. Even so, on

her first morning, she felt stressed. She ate a bowl of porridge, checked herself in the

mirror and washed her face in a hurry. Then she put on a plain yellow dress and a

fleece jacket, picked up her kit and headed for work.

When she got there, there was a woman with a goose waiting for her. The woman

gave Sarah an official letter from the vet. The letter implied that the animal could be

suffering from a rare form of foot and mouth disease, which was surprising, because

normally you would only expect to see it in a dog or a goat. Sarah was sentimental, so

this made her feel sorry for the beautiful bird.

Before long, that itchy goose began to strut around the office like a lunatic, which

made an unsanitary mess. The gooses owner, Mary Harrison, kept calling, Comma,

Comma, which Sarah thought was an odd choice for a name. Comma was strong and

huge, so it would take some force to trap her, but Sarah had a different idea. First she

tried gently stroking the gooses lower back with her palm, then singing a tune to her.

Finally, she administered ether.

Her efforts were not futile. In no time, the goose began to tire, so Sarah was able to

hold onto Comma and give her a relaxing bath.

Once Sarah had managed to bathe the goose, she wiped her off with a cloth and laid

her on her right side. Then Sarah confirmed the vets diagnosis. Almost immediately,

she remembered an effective treatment that required her to measure out a lot of

medicine. Sarah warned that this course of treatment might be expensive-either five or

six times the cost of penicillin. I cant imagine paying so much, but Mrs. Harrison -a

millionaire lawyer-thought it was a fair price for a cure.


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Lukas Tribelhorn III

Bitte drucken sie die folgenden Bedingungen aus und geben es der Versuchsperson

um diese zu lesen, auszufllen, zu datieren und zu unterschreiben.

Subject Waiver and Liability Release

I hereby grant and assign to International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA),

exclusive rights, including copyright, to use, license, sell, and otherwise exploit each

and every recording of my voice that I have made or may make in the future. Each and

every such recording is a "work made for hire" commissioned as a contribution to a

collective work and I understand that I will not be the copyright owner thereof and

will have no rights thereto. I understand that the recordings may be published anddistributed by means of various media, including, but not limited to, the Internet. I

make my voluntary, unremunerated contributions to IDEA in the interests of dialect

research. I further understand that IDEA may distribute and/or offer for sale copies of

my recordings, compilations, or other documents in the archive to be used for

commercial purposes or to inform students, professionals, and the public about

dialects of English. I understand that IDEA, its owners, publishers, employees,

editors, and agents cannot warrant or guarantee that use of my sound recordings and

compilations, made available on the World Wide Web or otherwise, will be subject to

their supervision or control. Accordingly, I release IDEA, its owners, publishers,

employees, editors, and agents from any and all liability related to dissemination of

the material I have contributed and/or will contribute. I have read this document and

understand its contents.

Subjects name: (please print)__________________________________

Subjects signature:______________________________

Date: (dd/mm/yyyy) ______________


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Lukas Tribelhorn IV

Declaration of Authenticity

I, Lukas Tribelhorn, hereby declare that this work is originally authored and written by myself, in

my own words. I hereby declare that I have referenced every citation or information used in this

paper and that I have not manipulated any data.

Date: ________________ Signature: __________________________

Lukas Tribelhorn, 4bW, Kantonsschule Wil

Documents

Differences in the Pronunciation of English in Switzerland