Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Rehman, Ishrat (2019) Urdu Vowel System and Perception of English Vowels by Punjabi-Urdu Speakers. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/80850/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Urdu Vowel System and Perception of English Vowels by Punjabi-Urdu Speakers Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to Department of English Language and Linguistics (ELL) School of European Culture and Languages (SECL) University of Kent, Canterbury by Ishrat Rehman 2019 Abstract A well-defined vocalic and consonantal system is a prerequisite when investigating the perception and production of a second language. The lack of a well-defined Urdu vowel system in the multilingual context of Pakistan motivated investigation of the acoustic and phonetic properties of Urdu vowels. Due to the significant influence of a number of first languages, the study focuses on the Urdu spoken in Punjab, Pakistan. A production experiment reports the acoustic properties of the monophthongs and six diphthongs in Urdu. The results showed that Urdu distinguishes between short and long vowels, and lacks an open-mid front and an open-mid back vowel. Since the central vowel is fairly open and retracted, it appears that the central vowel space is empty. This was reflected in the difficulty of perceiving the central vowels of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) by Punjabi Urdu speakers. The acoustic and phonetic evidence partially supports the phonetic existence of diphthongs in Urdu. The acoustic investigation of the Urdu vowel system helped to predict the perceptual assimilation and classification patterns of SSBE vowels by Punjabi-Urdu speakers. A cross-language perceptual assimilation and a free classification experiment was conducted in three different consonantal contexts to test the predictions of three mainstream models of L2 perception: SLM, PAM and L2LP. The assimilation patterns in a cross-language and category goodness rating task varied according to familiarity with the target language. The patterns of perceptual assimilation failed to predict the perceptual similarity of the SSBE vowels in the auditory free classification task. Thus, the findings support the model predictions with regard to the role of L1; however acoustic similarities between L1 and L2 neither predict the patterns of cross-language perceptual assimilation nor perceptual similarity. ii Acknowledgements First of all, I am immensely grateful for the continuous support and guidance from my primary supervisor, Prof Amalia Arvaniti, throughout the course of my PhD. Prof Arvaniti spent numerous hours and sent feedback on multiple drafts up until the very last minute. This thesis would not have been possible without the continuous and informative input from Prof Arvaniti. I am forever grateful to Prof Arvaniti for her kindness, patience, continuous support, guidance and for such an amazing learning experience throughout the course of my PhD. I am also very grateful to my secondary supervisor, Dr Gloria Chamorro, who gave me feedback on second language perception and advised me to prepare the questionnaires for participants via Google forms. I would also like to thank Dr Tamara Rathcke for her advice and guidance on acoustic data analysis and for introducing me to R. I am also very grateful to Dr Angelos Lengeris for his input and advice on the data analysis for my perception experiments. I would also like to thank Jacqui Martlew for her continuous guidance over the years and help for research grant applications for conference presentations and travel for data collection. I am also very grateful to the Head of Department, Dr David Hornsby and other staff members in ELL and SECL for their kindness and support over the years. This PhD would not have been possible without the partial funding from SECL (50th Anniversary Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) scholarship), and therefore I am very grateful for this once in a lifetime opportunity. I would also like to thank the 101 participants without whose participation I would not have completed this thesis. I am very grateful to Dr Arif Mateen and Mrs Ferdos Arif, in Boston, and Prof Amra Raza, Head of Department at the Department of English Language iii and Literature, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan for facilitating my data collection and giving me permission and facilities to use for my data collection. The continuous support and well-wishes from my family kept me going, and I am very grateful to my mother, sisters and brother for believing in me and supporting me throughout the course of my PhD. I cannot express in words how thankful I am to my husband, in particular for his patience, and because without his moral, technical and financial support I would not have been able to complete this thesis. iv For my mother [meːriː ɐmmĩː keː lɪjeː] میری امی کے لئے v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background - Urdu in Pakistan ................................................................................... 1 1.2 Urdu Sound Structure .................................................................................................. 4 1.2.1 Monophthongs .................................................................................................................. 5 1.2.2 Diphthongs ......................................................................................................................... 7 1.3. Pakistani English ........................................................................................................ 7 1.3.1 Background - Historical and Political .................................................................. 8 1.4 Second Language Perception .................................................................................... 11 1.4.1 Background ........................................................................................................ 11 1.5 Aims and Objectives ................................................................................................. 15 1.6 Overview of the Thesis ............................................................................................. 15 Chapter 2 ......................................................................................................................... 17 Urdu Monophthongs ....................................................................................................... 17 2.1 Background - Urdu Vowels ...................................................................................... 17 2.1.1 Aims and Objectives........................................................................................... 23 2.2 Pilot Study ................................................................................................................. 24 2.3 Main Study ................................................................................................................ 25 2.3.1 Methods .............................................................................................................. 25 vi 2.3.1.1 Speakers ......................................................................................................................... 25 2.3.1.2 Materials ........................................................................................................................ 26 2.4 Procedures ................................................................................................................. 31 2.4.1 Segmentation ...................................................................................................... 33 2.4.2 Acoustic Measurements ..................................................................................... 36 2.4.3 Automatic Formant Extraction ........................................................................... 37 2.4.4 Statistical Analysis ............................................................................................. 39 2.5 Results ......................................................................................................................