Phonetic quantity as a social marker in urban Finland Swedish

Abstract

Quantity has been considered one of the most salient social markers in Finland Swedish. Extra-long consonants in stressed V:C syllables have been characteristic for the speech of upper class Swedish in Helsinki. In contrast, rural Finland Swedish dialects are characterized by very short consonant durations in V:C sequences. <br />The aim of this paper is to study phonetic quantity in Swedish spoken in three cities in Finland: Helsinki, Turku and Vaasa. Spontaneous speech data from 40 speakers in two age groups were analyzed. The results show significant differences across the cities. V:/C ratios are significantly lower in Helsinki and Turku than in Vaasa. In Turku, there is a significant difference between older and younger speakers: the older speakers have similar values to the Helsinki speakers, whereas many of the younger speakers have values resembling those of Vaasa speakers.<br />Vowel duration is the most important cue for discriminating between V:C and VC: sequences in Helsinki and Turku. In Vaasa, on the other hand, vowel duration as well as consonant duration is used for differentiating V:C and VC: sequences.