POSTVOCALIC RHOTICITY IN PAKISTANI AND BRITISH ENGLISH: AN ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS OF BS-LEVEL LEARNERS

Abstract

This paper is a form of comparative acoustic examination of postvocalic /r/ in Pakistani English (PakE) and British Received Pronunciation (RP) based on university students with the BS level of education. Although RP conventionally lacks a rhotic accent, PakE is rhotic or non-rhotic depending on L1 interference (e.g. retroflex /r/ of Urdu) and other sociolinguistic contexts. Researchers examined the vocal tract length of monosyllabic words (  car, bar, door, far  ) examined as produced by PakE speakers and RP references onto the recording of the Oxford English Dictionary by using Praat software. Judging by the results, there are acoustic differences that are very important: PakE /r/ contains more of a rhoticity, is longer in duration (~0.39s as compared to RP~0.20s), has a higher intensity (71.44100 dB as compared to 56.07- 68.69 dB) and distinct frequency patterns such as being able to see F4 (~3980 Hz) and lower F2 (1068.45 Hz as compared to RP~ RP /r/ in turn is characterized by shorter, fronted approximants but elevated pitch (218.88 Hz against PakE 99.96 Hz). These findings highlight PakE’s systematic divergence from RP, aligning it with rhotic varieties like American English while reflecting L1 phonological transfer. The study contributes to World Englishes research by providing empirical acoustic evidence of PakE’s emerging norms and underscores pedagogical implications for pronunciation training in multilingual contexts.