Phonological Variations in the Speech of Native Pashto Speakers: A PRAAT Assisted Study of English Short Vowels

Abstract

Phonological variation is the trademark of linguistic diversities, illuminating the complicate intricacies between speech patterns and language contact. World Englishes in this regard validates the rich tapestry of those phonological variations which are moulded by collaboration of English with other vernaculars. Using World Englishes as Theoretical Framework, this study exposes variant English short vowels of Received Pronunciation (RP) in the speech of native speakers of Pashto (NSP). The study also attempts to describe variant RP short vowels in terms of places and manners of articulation. Through the utilization of Qualitative method, the study scrutinizes the pronunciation of soft and hard dialects of Pashto on PRAAT. Data for this study was generated in form of word list exhibiting phonemic environment at word initial, final and medial levels. The analysed data demonstrates spectrogram, formants, scripts, variant pronunciation, Received Pronunciation and duration simultaneously. The result reveals significant variations in the production of English vowels. The commonly variant phonemes are: /i/, /e/, /ᴂ/, /ɒ/, /ə/. These vowels are pronounced differently which justifies the use of a unique variety of RP English practiced in the context of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The findings have also implications in comprehension of composite interplay between speech patterns and language contact. The present investigation is an attempt to describe variant phonemes and may inspire further exploration in socio-phonetic, prosodic, supra-segmental features, lexical and syntactic analysis for the comprehensive understanding of language variations and World Englishes.

Keywords: World Englishes, Phonological variations, Native Speakers of Pashto (NSP), Received Pronunciation (RP), Monophthongs, Acoustic, PRAAT, Spectrogram, Formants