Speaker-Specific Patterns of Frication of Voiceless Stops in Au

The present study examines speaker variability in patterns of frication of the voiceless stops /k/ and /p/ in Australian English. The study was prompted by initial auditory analyses of spontaneous speech data in which fricative realisations of /k/ and /p/ appeared to occur to varying extents for different speakers. Although speakerrelated variability in the distribution of different realisations of voiceless stops has been noted in some studies, e.g. Sangster (2002) regarding Liverpool English, its potential use as a conveyor of speaker-characterising information has not been explored in detail.