A comparative analysis of the vowels of native speakers of dialectal and standard Maltese

Abstract

This study deals with the production of vowels in formal and semi-formal situations by native speakers of standard and dialectal Maltese. Informants from Ħamrun (for standard Maltese) and Mġarr (for dialectal Maltese) participated in this study. Items containing the target vowels to be elicited were included in a text intended for reading aloud as well as in a specially designed map task. Informants read the prepared text separately. The formality of the reading task was expected to induce the informants to use their more 'standard' variety. Informants were then paired and asked to complete the map task in an attempt at eliciting semi-formal data in which they would be more likely to use their 'native' variety, be it standard or dialectal Maltese. Data was obtained from the informants during data collection sessions held in a recording studio. Subsequent auditory and acoustic analyses of the data obtained showed that the vowels produced by the native standard Maltese informants were similar across the formal and semi-formal tasks, while the native dialectal Maltese informants' vowels differed across the two tasks. Moreover, the analysis carried out showed that, in the semi-formal task, the native dialectal informants' vowels were closer to the vowel realisations described as occurring in their native dialectal variety than those described as occurring in standard Maltese, while in the formal task, the native dialectal informants' vocalic realisations differed from those described for both their native dialectal variety and standard Maltese. Furthermore, significant differences relating possibly to different degrees of linguistic accommodation as well as influence from the standard prestige variety were noted between the male and female dialectal informants' vowel realisations. Finally, this study also mapped out the vocalic inventories of the native dialectal Maltese speakers' variety comparing these to the vocalic inventories of the standard Maltese speakers' variety on the basis of the data analysis carried out of the informants' vowel realisations in both the formal and the semi-formal tasks.