Differences in nasalance and nasality perception between Texas South and Midland dialects

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Speech Science
• Acoustic Phonetics

Background:

• Previous research focused on dialect's effect on oral-nasal balance production (nasalance).
• Limited information exists on cross-dialectal variation in nasality perception.
• Texas South and Midland dialects were chosen due to their distinct nasalance variations.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate dialectal influence on oral-nasal balance production (nasalance).
• Examine dialectal influence on nasality perception.
• Compare Texas South and Midland dialects regarding nasalance and nasality perception.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 62 participants (31 Texas South, 31 Midland).
• Measured mean nasalance of speech stimuli.
• Assessed nasality perception using direct magnitude estimation with synthesized stimuli.

Main Results:

• Significant differences found between dialectal groups in nasalance scores.
• Texas South participants exhibited higher nasalance in standardized readings.
• Texas South participants assigned higher nasality ratings to synthetic stimuli compared to Midland participants.

Conclusions:

• Dialectal background influences both the production and perception of nasality.
• Perceptual variations in nasality exist at a dialectal level, similar to production variations.
• Findings highlight the importance of considering dialect in speech perception research.