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The present research deals with language variation and presumably change from the theoretical perspective of apparent-time studies. It aims to explore the retainment or merging of the Catalan mid-front and mid-back vowel contrasts, and whether merging is complete or yields a near-merging scenario, based on the production of mid-vowels by bilinguals with a stronger command of Catalan (Catalan-dominant) as well as by bilinguals with a stronger command of Spanish (Spanish-dominant), all residents of Barcelona, Spain. In the dual speech community of Barcelona, members find themselves in a situation of both territorial and societal bilingualism. The variety of Catalan spoken in Barcelona (Central Catalan) possesses two sets of phonemic mid-vowels (/e/-/ε/ and /o/-/ↄ/), unlike Spanish which has a single vowel per set (/e/ and /o/). The impact of the independent variables of gender, age, language dominance and mother tongue on mid-vowel production is assessed, providing insight into the non-linear nature of language variation and change.
Seventy-two Catalan/Spanish bilingual residents of Barcelona of different generations (their ages range from 15 to 75) were recorded reading aloud a Catalan passage including the following stressed vowel instances, /e/, /ε/, /o/ and /ↄ/, which were subjected to an acoustic analysis alongside the /i/, /a/, /u/. F1 and F2 values of all seven vowels that are implicated in the data were submitted to a speaker normalisation procedure. A method was applied for determining whether F1 frequency differences between close-mid and open-mid vowels corresponded to a vowel contrast or (near-) merging scenario. The effect of gender, age, language dominance and mother tongue on the mid-vowel differentiation was analysed statistically.
A number of conclusions based on the statistical analyses performed and dataset trends are drawn. It was first found that Catalan bilinguals achieved a better mid-vowel distinction than Spanish bilinguals. Overall, mid-front vowels were better differentiated than mid-back vowels at a production level. It was also found that older speakers tended to better retain the mid-back vowel contrast. Youngsters and young Spanish speakers, whose parents are both Spanish, performed better than middle-aged and older Spanish speakers. The results further demonstrated that Catalan female bilinguals tended to have a more robust mid-vowel differentiation than Catalan male and Spanish female bilinguals. Implications which suggest that variation is involved in this study are discussed and potential explanations are offered.
