AN ACOUSTIC STUDY OF FIRST- AND SECOND-GENERATION GUJARATI IMMIGRANTS IN WEMBLEY: EVIDENCE FOR ACCENT CONVERGENCE?

Bronwen Evans, Ajay Mistry & Caroline Moreiras
University College London

ID 1505
[full paper]

The present study investigated differences in the vowel production of first- and second-generation Gujarati immigrants in Wembley, north London. Subjects were recorded producing the eleven British English monophthongal vowels in the phonetic context /hVd/. F1 and F2 formant frequency values were measured and compared with existing acoustic and auditory descriptions of London English. The results demonstrated that second-generation immigrants had not acquired the foreign-accented vowels of their parents. Instead, these subjects produced vowels that were more similar to Standard Southern British English (SSBE) speakers than to those of second-generation immigrants in similar ethnic communities in London.