Perception of French, Belgian and Swiss accents by French and Belgian listeners
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2011/04/0011/000180Keywords:
perceptual dialectology, regional variation, French accentsAbstract
This article addresses the perceptual identification of French regional accents by listeners from the Paris region and Belgium. It is based on the geographical localization of about thirty speakers from seven French-speaking areas: Vendée (West of France), Languedoc (South of France), Alsace (East of France), Romand Switzerland, and the East, Centre, and West of Belgium. Contrary to the speakers‘ age bracket (older or younger than 60) and speaking style (read or spontaneous speech), the listeners‘ region of origin and the speakers‘ degree of accentedness (also rated by the listeners) have a major effect. Confusions are frequent among the Belgian areas, but taken as a whole, the Belgian accent is remarkably well identified, especially by Belgian listeners. The Southern accent remains the best identified.
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Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
