Acoustic Analysis of The Vowels [æ,i,o] in Kermanian Accent

Acoustic Analysis of The Vowels [æ,i,o] in Kermanian Accent Vahideh Abolhasanizadeh[1] Maryam Abdolalizadeh[2] Reception :2012/11/12 Acceptance: 2014/6/27 The aim of this article is the study of vowel reduction in Kermanian accent, and comparing it with the standard accent. Vowel reduction is a phenomenon in which an unstressed vowel undergoes changes and tends to be close to the other vowels and it happens in unstressed syllables. In order to investigate vowel reduction in Kermanian accent, six male speakers of Persain language with an average age of twenty three and standard deviation of 3.08 were chosen to participate in this study. Three of the speakers were of Kermanian accent and the other three were of standard accent. The research data consists of twelve words which were placed in interrogative and declarative sentenceS, in stressed and unstressed syllables and in the form of Kermanian and standard accent. The speakers were recorded in the acoustic room of Linguistic Department of Sharif University, using a Shure microphone and PRAAT software. Then, the amount of duration, and first, second and third formants, fundamental frequency and center of gravity were measured for each studying vowel. The results show that duration, energy and fundamental frequency of these vowels in Kermanian accent is less than that in standard accent. Also, the results of analyzing first and second formants confirm the claim that the vowels[æ,i,o] in Kermanian accent tend to the center. This kind of vowel reduction in Kermanian accent is called centripetal reduction.   Key words:vowel reduction, Kermanian accent, standard accent, center of gravity.
1Assistant Professor, Department of  Foreign  Languages, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman(abolhasani@uk.ac.ir) 2 MA student of Linguistics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman(abdolalizadeh@uk.ac.ir)