Chapter 15
Avant-garde Dutch: A Perceptual,
Acoustic, and Evaluational Study
Renée van Bezooijen, Radboud University and
Vincent J. van Heuven, Leiden University
- Introduction
In the present study we will target a vowel shift in present-day Dutch. It is
the most conspicuous feature of a new variety of Dutch “discovered” and
described by Stroop (1998), who christened it Polder Dutch. Here we will
refer to the new variety by the more interpretable name of Avant-garde Dutch
(for details on the background of the variety we refer to Van Heuven, Van
Bezooijen, and Edelman 2005). The clearest phenomenon in avant-garde
Dutch is a change affecting the closing low-mid diphthong /͑i/, which is said
to undergo a process of lowering. According to Stroop, the lowering would be
especially noticeable in the speech of relatively young, highly educated and
politically progressive women.
We aim to present an integrated study of various properties of the ongo-
ing change. We will do this by presenting three separate studies. The ¿ rst
study uses a perceptual approach to test the claim that avant-garde women are
more prone to adopt the new variety than male speakers. The second study
tries to determine the acoustic basis of the difference in realization of /͑i/ by
female and male speakers. The third evaluational study aims to determine
the gender-related attractiveness and other subjective features of Avant-garde
Dutch. Below, the aims of the three studies will be presented in more detail.
1.1 The phonetics of Avant-garde Dutch
Avant-garde Dutch differs from the standard language only in its phonetics,
so it is an accent rather than a dialect. Stroop presents the change as a chain
shift, whereby the low-mid diphthongs /͑L, ±\, ɬX/ are lowered. As a result,
the onset of the low-mid diphthongs assumes a position very close to open /a:/,