What is it about?
Rhotics are probably the most variable sounds across languages and dialects. In this paper, we present the SoPhISM corpus, which collects phonetic data for Sicilian dialects and Sicilian Italian. The main focus of the corpus is on rhotics, recorded both for an acoustic analysis and for an articulatory one, by using AAA software and an EPG. Speakers recorded both word-list reading, and short map-task dialogues with peers in both Italian and Sicilian. The analysis of rhotics so far highlighted a within-speaker variation in the realization of rhotics in Italian and Sicilian, and also the emergence of a new realization of rhotic labelled as "tap+fricative".
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Why is it important?
This work presents the data for a multilevel bilingual corpus of spoken Italian and Sicilian, up to acoustic and articulatory analysis by using both spectrograms and EPG data. The paper highlighted also the huge within-speaker variation in the realization of rhotics, by adding a piece of evidence of a new typology of rhotic realization. The paper claims that this realization, also found in other languages (e.g., Spanish), could be a reduction of the gestures of trills into a more fricative sounds.
Perspectives
I was really excited to be a co-author of this publication, and to have the opportunity to work in the construction of the SoPhISM corpus. Personally, I think that having a multimodal bilingual corpus can cast a new light on our understandings of how communication works, even at the smallest level such as the variation in the production of one single phone. Moreover, this work emphasizes how complex the realization of rhotics is and how it varies across situations, speakers, and languages.
Dr Chiara Meluzzi
University of Pavia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The sociophonetics of rhotic variation in Sicilian dialects and Sicilian Italian: corpus, methodology and first results, Loquens, September 2016, Departmento de Publicaciones del CSIC,
DOI: 10.3989/loquens.2016.025.
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