Dialectal Feature Imitation in Norwegian

This study investigates the ability of speakers to imitate features from another dialect of their native language. Speakers from two different Norwegian dialects spoken in Stavanger and Trondheim produced speech material using their own and each other’s dialect. Acoustic analysis involved the occurrence of preaspiration in vowel – voiceless stop contexts. Measurements revealed that preaspiration occurs in both dialects but that its duration is longer in the Stavanger dialect. In imitations speech rate was found to be reduced, suggesting increased speaking effort. In general, both speaker groups successfully adapted their preaspiration production to the norm for the imitated dialect. At the same time, gender-specific as well as idiosyncratic factors seemed to influence imitation performance.