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This study explored the production of 11 English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. Ten undergraduates (five males and five females) from the Pidie District, Aceh, participated, with Acehnese and Bahasa Indonesia as their first languages, and English learned formally at school since the 7th grade. Using PRAAT, recordings of vowel elicitations were measured and analyzed, revealing distinctions in vowel pairs. Statistical tests were employed to compare vowel productions between the males and females. The results showed that the females produced many of the vowel pairs similarly: /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/, /u:/-/ʊ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɑː/-/ɒ/. The pairs they differentiated were /ɜ:/-/ʌ/ and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. However, the female students could not discriminate between the long and short vowel pairs. Meanwhile, the male students could distinguish the following pairs: /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɜ:/-/ʌ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. The others, /ɛ/-/æ/, /u:/-/ʊ,/ and /ɑː/-/ɒ/, were produced similarly. Additionally, they could distinguish the long and short vowels in the /ɜ:/-/ʌ/, /u:/-/ʊ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɑː/-/ɒ/ pairs, but not /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/ and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. This study has shown complex distinctions in the production of English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. These findings underscore the importance of considering gender-specific phonetic patterns in English language acquisition, providing valuable insights for language educators and researchers.

This study is an instrumental analysis of Acehnese oral monophthongs and diphthongs. It is based on Asyik’s (1987) description of these vowels. Ten monophthongs and twelve diphthongs were produced by ten female North Aceh dialect speakers. The target vowels were placed in common words and were elicited with the aid of pictures and leading questions. A total of 660 tokens of the vowels were analyzed using PRAAT version 4.6.12 (Boersma ＆ Weenink 2007). The results for the monophthongs generally support Asyik’s (1987) description of these vowels with the exception of /u/ and /ɔ/ which appeared to have advanced in the vowel space. For the diphthongs, there was a tendency for /ɛə/ to be realized as a long monophthong by the speakers, while some of the other diphthongs described by Asyik appeared to have different off-glides.

The notion of language as a marker of identity is usefully explored in relation to news broadcast language. Newsreaders' speech, like all spoken language, is subject to change over time, and radio and television bulletins have been recording this process for as long as the technology has allowed. Evidence of Australia's evolution from colonial outpost to independent nation can be heard in the speech of its newsreaders, who in the mid 1940s began to move away broadcasting. The article presents some findings of research into those aspects of Australian newsreaders' speech which indicate change most clearly, i.e. vowel quality and intonation. Instrumental analyses conducted on data collected from three speaker groups suggest that whereas vowels have clearly shifted away from RP-like accents towards 'General' end even 'Broad' accents of Australian English, American-sounding intonation patterns may be developing in the speech of certain commercial FM radio newsreaders, contrary to what is stated in the literature. (Verlag, adapt.).