Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thesis Format

Monograph

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

French

Supervisor

Tennant, Jeff

2nd Supervisor

Pillière, Linda

Affiliation

Aix-Marseille University

Joint Supervisor

Abstract

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.

Summary for Lay Audience

The present dissertation investigates the English spoken by ice hockey players in Canada, asking whether they might have a particular way of speaking that could be called “Canadian Hockey English”. Interest in this community is sparked by the strong link between hockey, Canada’s national sport since 1994, and Canadian identity. In order to answer this research question, this thesis combines two parts. I first recorded the speech of 19 non-professional hockey players living in London, Ontario, following the methodology of sociolinguistics, a field interested in studying how language varies and changes. I focus on two specific Canadian features: vowel sounds in words such as MOUTH and PRICE, and those in words like KIT, DRESS and TRAP. The analysis focuses on determining whether ice hockey players’ engagement in the sport may influence how they display their Canadian identity in their pronunciation of these vowel sounds. In the second part, I used a three-part online survey to discover participants’ beliefs and representations about Canadian English and Hockey English, as well as a listening task that asked participants to listen to short recordings, rate the speakers on personal traits (e.g., friendly, educated), and say if they would identify these speakers as hockey players. The online survey was completed by 249 participants, all anglophone Ontarians, born and currently living in Ontario. While results for pronunciation features do not convincingly point to the existence of a distinct Hockey English, results of the perception study do confirm Ontarians’ belief that Canadian hockey players have a particular way of speaking English.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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