No abstract

Multiethnolects have been observed in (Western) Europe for about 30 years, also in Zurichthe biggest city in German-speaking Switzerland, characterized by ethnic and linguistic diversity. Speech rhythm appears to be a salient feature of several European multiethnolects and has been described as a 'staccato' rhythm. However, a sociophonetic investigation of rhythm in Swiss German multiethnolects is lacking so far. To investigate rhythmic characteristics of multiethnolectal Zurich German, we recorded read speech of 48 adolescents of two schools in Zurich. Forty adolescents from a third school rated speech samples to indicate how multiethnolectal the speakers sound on a 7-point Likert scale. These rating scores were then correlated with various rhythm metrics (%V, ΔC, ΔV; varcoC, varcoV; nPVI-C, nPVI-V). We found significant correlations between vowel variability measurements and rating scores as well as between syllable rate and rating scores. In contrast, we found no corre-lations with consonantal variability measurements. Our results support the view that multiethnolectal Zurich German uses less vowel reduction in unstressed syllables which leads to the impression of a 'staccato' rhythm of this variety.

Since about 2000, the emergence of so-called ‘multiethnolects’ has been observed among adolescents in German-speaking Switzerland; however, a systematic description of these varieties is lacking at present. The few existing perception studies of multiethnolects in other European countries are usually based on two or more predetermined groups that are compared. This paper investigates which labels are used for multiethnolectal Zurich German and how this way of speaking is perceived by adolescents; we adopt a perceptual sociolinguistics approach which focuses on the conceptualizations of lay people rather than on those of linguists. In a rating experiment, 40 adolescents listened to short speech samples of 48 pupils recorded in two different schools in the city of Zurich and were asked to rate the speakers on a 7-point Likert scale according to how multiethnolectal they sounded (not at all – very strongly). The results yielded a perceptual continuum rather than a clear-cut binary categorization [±multiethnolectal]. A smaller follow-up experiment with 12 adult raters (using the same stimuli) yielded a highly significant correlation between the mean rating scores of the two groups of raters.

Multiethnolectal ways of speaking have been emerging for 30 years in culturally and linguistically diverse neighborhoods of European cities, including Zurich (Switzerland). Among the prosodic features of Germanic multiethnolects, a so-called 'staccato' rhythm has been mentioned in several studies. For instance, a comparison between two groups of adolescents (12 speakers each) showed that speakers of multiethnolectal Zurich German displayed slower syllable rates and less vowel duration variability than speakers of a rather traditional dialect.This study compares syllable rate and speech rhythm metrics (nPVI-V, nPVI-C) in spontaneous and read speech of 48 Zurich German adolescents. In a regression analysis, rhythmic measures were compared with the perception of how multiethnolectal the speakers sounded (rating score). The results showed that syllable rate and nPVI-V were related to rating score independently of speaking style (read, spontaneous speech): Speakers who were perceived as more multiethnolectal had a slower syllable rate and less vowel duration variability. Such findings were not observed for nPVI-C.These results suggest that syllable rate and speech rhythm (at least, vowel duration variability) are stable phonetic features of multiethnolectal Zurich German, since the relationship between these features and the perception of multiethnolectal speech was observed in both read and spontaneous speech.