A History of /s/-retraction in New Zealand English

/s/-retraction refers to a sound change whereby /s/ becomes more /esch/-like in certain phonetic contexts, most notably /str/ clusters (e.g. ‘Aushtralia’).

In this talk, we make use of Reuben's recent Master's project to show how this sound change has developed over time in NZE. Using data drawn from the Origins of New Zealand English corpus we consider the linguistic and social factors that have influenced its spread through NZE.