Frication of /k/ and /p/ in Australian English: Inter - and Intra-Speaker Variation

Frication of stops occurs when a phonemic stop is produced with incomplete closure such that it is effectively reduced to a fricative. This is a typical connected speech process in dialects of British English, and has also been observed in Australian English. The present study examines patterns of frication of the voiceless stops /k/ and /p/ in Australian English produced by a group of male speakers from Melbourne. Acoustic analysis of spontaneous speech shows that frication of /k/ and /p/ occurs to a significant extent in Australian English, and that this behaviour also exhibits systematic speakerspecific variation.