This document summarizes two experiments on the perception of phonetic markers of Quebec French dialect by native Quebec French speakers. The first experiment found that laxing of high vowels (/i/ and /u/) and affrication of stops were the strongest markers of Quebec French origin. The second experiment found that discrimination of the tense-lax contrast was easier for /y/ than /i/ in noise, suggesting the perceptual prominence of /i/ laxing is not due to its acoustic properties, but rather sociolinguistic evaluation of variants. In conclusion, laxing of /i/ is a particularly salient marker of Quebec French dialect due to phonetic rather than low-level auditory processing.

1. Discrimination of
Quebec French
dialectal markers
Annie Brasseur
and
Lucie Ménard

2. Dialectal marker
2
 informations about the place of origin of a speaker
 used by the entire linguistic community in all situations of
communication (i.e. not stratified)
 no negative judgement (i.e. not marked)
Markers Informations
biological age, gender, physical condition
psychological personality, emotional state
social place of origin, social class, level of education
Laver et Trudgill (1979)

3. From the 44 phenomena identified as typical of Quebec French
in descriptive studies1
3
examples FF QF
Affrication : /t/ , /d/ « petit » [pəti] [pətsi]
Laxing : /i/, /y/, /u/ « caniche » [kaniʃ] [kanɪʃ]
Posteriorization : /a/ « soldat » [sɔlda] [sɔldɑ]
Anteriorization : /ɑ/ « méchant » [meʃɑ] [meʃa]
Closing : / / « chemin » [ʃəmɛ] [ʃəme]
1see PHONO, Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur les activités langagières (CIRAL)

4. Experiment 1 : Objectives
4
 Evaluate the perceptual weight of phonetic features
considered typical of Quebec French
 Determine :
 if the perception of accent markers is possible in nonword;
 whether a combination of features facilitate the perception of the
Quebecois accent;
 if some features allow better recognition of Quebec accent;
 the effect of the position on perception.

5. Matched-guise technique
5
 Target stimuli
 carrier-sentence in FF
 QF features inserted to measure the effect on the perception
 Distractors in QF and in FF
 to make sure the participants recognize the two varieties of French
 to distract the participants from the target speaker and from the task
Target stimuli Distractors
Speakers origin: FF QF FF
Production : FF QF QF FF

6. Carrier-sentence : « Le X1 est X2 »
6

7. Manipulation : 1 neutral word, 1 target word
UQAM, mars 2012LIN9985 Séminaire
7

8. Manipulation : 2 target words
UQAM, mars 2012LIN9985 Séminaire
8

9. Perception test
9
 4 choices  Participants
 41 participants
(34 women, 7 men)
 age min : 20
max : 50
 from academia
(students of 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles)
 native speaker of Quebec
French
 no known hearing
problem
Answer Value
I’m sure he is from Quebec 4
I’m not sure, but I think he is from
Quebec
3
I’m not sure, but I think he is from
France
2
I’m sure he is from France 1

10. Effect of Quebec French features on the perception of origin
(mean scores and standard deviations)
10
(I Y U) et ( T D) > (A) > (AN) et (IN)
Meanscores

11. Perceptual ranking of Quebec French dialectal markers
11
1. Laxing
I U > Y
2. Affrication
D >T
Posteriorization /a/
Anteriorization / /
3. Closing / /

12. French high vowels variation
12
 CVC, final, accent = lax allophone mandatory
 Except CVC, closed by voiced fricative [ʁ v z ʒ]
 Laxing possible (regional varieties)
 Lenghtening
 In other contexts (i.e. non-final, unaccentuated, CV)
 Laxing is optional
 Devoicing, deletion, diphthongization, harmonization
CVC FF QF
« mille » [mil] [mɪl]
« bûche » [byʃ] [bʏʃ]
« coude » [kud] [kʊd]

13. Why variants of the same category
have different perceptual relevance?
13
 /i/ : F1 F2
 /y/ : F1 F2
 /u/ : F1 F2
F2
F1

14. Focalization
14
 /i/ F3-F4 convergence
 /y/ F2-F3 convergence
/i/ and /y/: F1 F2

15. Experiment 2 : Objective
15
 The objective is to determine whether the perceptual weight
of [ɪ], greater than that of [ʏ], is due to acoustic properties
related to general auditory abilities, in which case, its
properties are more robust, and therefore easier to perceive
in noise.
 We will observe the ability to discriminate the tense-lax
contrast of vowels /i/ and /y/ by Quebec French speakers.

16. Discrimination test
16
 AXB
 Discrimination of /i/
 31 Quebec French native speakers
 Discrimination of /y/
 31 Quebec French native speakers
FF QF
« rapide » [ʁapid] [ʁapɪd]
« perruque » [peʁyk] [peʁʏk]

17. Discrimination test
17
 Speech noise Word
intensity (dB)
Speech noise
intensity (dB)
SNR
70
--- x
70 0
73 3
76 6
79 9
82 12
85 15
88 18
91 21

18. AXB Task
18
 2 lax /i/
answer is A : [ʁapɪd] [ʁapɪd] [ʁapid]
answer is B : [ʁapid] [ʁapɪd] [ʁapɪd]
 2 tense /i/
answer is A : [ʁapid] [ʁapid] [ʁapɪd]
answer is B : [ʁapɪd] [ʁapid] [ʁapid]
x 6 repetitions
x 9 levels of SNR
A X B

19. Discrimination of tenseness contrast: /i/ vs. /y/
19
QF speakers
/i/ /y/
Vowels
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
Discriminationscore
*

20. Discrimination of tenseness contrast: /i/ vs. /y/
20
/i/ vs. /y/
x 0dB 3dB 6dB 9dB 12dB 15dB 18dB 21dB
SNR
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Discriminationscore
/i/
/y/
*
*
*
*
*

21. Conclusions
21
 The perceptual relevance of [I] in the recognition of QF
accent by speakers of Quebec French is not due to acoustic
properties, since the discrimination of /y/ in noise is easier
than the discrimination of /i/ in noise for these speakers.
 It seems that the value placed on laxing as a dialectal
marker derived from a phonetic treatment of speech signal
rather than a low-level auditory processing.

22. Thank you!