THE ACOUSTICS OF GENDER AND REGIONAL VARIATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH: A SOCIOPHONETIC ANALYSIS OF LONG OPEN MONOPHTHONG [A:]

Abstract

This study examines the acoustic recognition of the long open vowel /aː/ in thirteen regional varieties of Pakistani, with specific consideration to gender-based and regional disparities. Grounded on speech data from 208 undergraduate speakers (including 104 females, 104 males), the study uses formant analysis (F1 and F2), vowel duration, z-score normalization, and inferential statistics to analyze how vowel quality and duration differ across Pakistan. Vowel segments were automatically time-aligned employing the Montreal Forced Aligner (MFA), following acoustic extraction via custom-written PRAAT scripts. The findings expose strong gender impacts, with female speakers articulating more open and centralized productions, whereas male speakers display greater regional disparity, especially in duration and vowel backness. Regional trends further highlight substratal impact from local languages; for instance, Sindhi, Saraiki, Pashto, Balochi, and Shina. The emerging patterns validate that /aː/ serves as a sociophonetic marker of both regional and gender identity in Pakistani English, supporting the pluricentric property of this postcolonial English variety.