Canadian Hockey English: Production and Perception

The present dissertation investigates the English spoken by ice hockey players in Canada, asking whether there might be a distinct language variety that could be called “Canadian Hockey English”. Applying acoustic analysis to recorded samples from the PAC-LVTI Ontario (Canada) Hockey English Corpus, I study two well-known Canadian English phonetic features: Canadian Raising and the Canadian Vowel Shift. I am particularly interested in determining whether these two variables are conditioned by the degree of hockey players’ engagement in the sport. In parallel, using a three-part online survey, I explore anglophone Ontarians’ knowledge and awareness of both Canadian English and Hockey English. I also test whether respondents can identify hockey players’ speech from listening to speech samples. Results of the production component of the study show that the speech of hockey players displays both Canadian features, and that speakers with a higher degree of involvement in the sport show more Canadian Raising in the /ai/ vowel of the PRICE lexical set, but not in the /au/ vowel of MOUTH. The Canadian Vowel Shift, on the other hand, does not appear to be conditioned by this factor of hockey engagement. The results of the perception component indicate that Ontarian respondents associate lexical, spelling and pronunciation features with Canadian English, which they distinguish from both American and British Englishes. Most respondents also acknowledge the existence of Hockey English, which they identify through lexical features, and which they associate with rurality and a lack of education. Some participants report that HE displays stereotypical features of Canadian English. Although respondents are not accurate in their identification of hockey players, the findings provide valuable insight into the influence of the label “hockey player” on respondents’ ratings of the recorded samples of Canadian English.