3. Affricates in Lleidatà: A sociophonetic case study

The aim of this paper is to explore the variability between voiced and voiceless affricates and fricatives in initial and post-consonantal position in a western dialect of Catalan: Lleidatà. The eastern Catalan dialects are more prestigious than the western dialects, and the former have less affricates than the latter. The data obtained can be summed up in the following way: (1) there is a loss of alveolopalatal affricates only in words containing voiceless affricates and when they are pronounced by readers (in news programs); (2) the voiceless fricatives and affricates in initial and post-consonantal position are better discriminated than the voiced ones, and the fricatives are starting to be considered the “correct” pronunciation by some speakers who have a secondary level of education.