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Sociolinguistics Symposium 19: Language and the City

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012

Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 355

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Gender and acoustic variation: cases of vowels in Arabic Libyan of Tripoli.

Authors: FATHI, SALAM; MOHAMED, Embarki
Submitted by: FATHI, SALAM (UNIVERSTY DE FRANCHE COMTE BESANCON, France)


This present study is interested in the articulatory difference and the social construction of this difference in Libyan Arabic of Tripoli between men and women. The data used is a list of words in Libyan Arabic of Tripoli containing consonants with strong distinctive values from a social point of view between men and women. These are pharyngealized consonants / s ˁ, t ˁ, ˁ d / and the corresponding non-pharyngealized consonants / s, t, d /. Gender differences will be illustrated here through the frequency values ​​of the first three formants [F1, F2, F3] of the vowels / i, u, a / which are in contact with the pharyngealized consonants and non-pharyngealized consonants. Based on the above mentioned facts, we formulate our hypothesis as follows:  

1. The variation of mean values of F1 and F2 of [i, u, a] depends on the consonantal context, notably pharyngealized and non-pharyngealized

2- The gender difference (male vs female) has a direct impact on how to make the syllable (CV) C= Consonant V= Vowel.

3- The slope of the equation will be a distinctive sign between genders.

Methodology
our data concern 10 Libyan Arabic speakers, 6 men and 4 women, aged between 17 and 30. The data consist of a list of words with and without meaning (logatomes). The words are trisyllabic, that is they have the following structures: C1V1 C2V2 C3V3 where C = s, s ˁ, t, t ˁ d, d ˁ, and V = [i, u, a]. All words were segmented and labeled manually in PRAAT. The F1, F2, F3 measures were taken at three frames of the vowel (onset, middle, offset). Regarding the locus equation, the frequency of (F2) was measured at two points of the frame: the beginning of the resonant vowel (F2 Onset) and the stable part of the vowel (F2 Mid).

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