Evaluating English Accents WorldWide Results: NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Personality Trait Means
257 native born Otago and Victoria students
174 females, 82 males, 1 missing, mean age 21.8
(collected by Donn Bayard and Ann Weatherall)
New Zealanders' Accent Guesses
majority/plurality percentage for each speaker in boldface;
major erroneous guesses italicised
Points to note:
As with all other cases, the monotonous NZE male was rated most unfavourably
by New Zealand participants.
However, the NZE female was also rated well down, usually 6th to 7th. The
exception was in the solidarity traits, where she was ranked a tied second or
third, below the American male.
The American female was as elsewhere a clear leader in all 6 solidarity traits,
and most power and competence ones as well.
In the four status traits the traditional NZ deference toward middle-class
English accents shows up in the high ratings for the male EE voice.
Note that a plurality of listeners (49%) mistook the male Australian for a
New Zealander.
Predictably, many New Zealanders guessed the Americans were Canadians, as
the accents are very difficult for New Zealanders to distinguish.
Created by:
Owen Baxter,
Modified: 13 Mar 2002, Made with Macintosh
