Do I make myself claire? Rethinking the direction of the NEAR/SQUARE merger in New Zealand English

The near‐merger of the front‐centering diphthongs NEAR /ɪə/ and SQUARE /eə/ in New Zealand English is a hallmark of ongoing phonological change. Previous studies have largely relied on read‐aloud data to track a merger that has conventionally been described as favouring a NEAR realisation, particularly among younger speakers, while older speakers typically maintain a distinction. To explore this phenomenon using more spontaneous speech, this study introduces an interactive sorting task designed to elicit a high density of NEAR/SQUARE tokens in natural discourse, alongside a traditional reading passage and minimal‐pair wordlist for comparison. Ten Wellington‐based, middle‐class Pākehā women were recruited: five categorised as ‘Young’ (ages 15–23) and five as ‘Old’ (ages 75–92). Each participant completed three tasks in succession: an interactive card‐sorting game, a 50‐token reading passage, and a wordlist of 13 minimal pairs, yielding an average of 108 NEAR/SQUARE tokens in under 17 minutes. Auditory coding of spontaneous and read data was complemented by acoustic formant analysis in Praat (F1, F2) of the wordlist items. Contrary to expectations, seven of ten participants exhibited a full merger on SQUARE, with only three maintaining a clear NEAR/SQUARE contrast. Both age groups showed strong tendencies to collapse on SQUARE, though Young speakers merged at a higher rate (four out of five participants) than Old (three out of four). Acoustic measurements confirmed that merger realisations clustered near traditional SQUARE formant values but were overall more open and backed than suggested in earlier studies. These findings challenge the prevailing narrative of a unidirectional merger onto NEAR. The interactive task proved effective at masking linguistic focus while efficiently generating high‐volume data, underscoring the value of this semi‐spontaneous elicitation method. Implications include the need for updated, large‐scale acoustic data collection and expanded sociophonetic variables (e.g., ethnicity, gender, social class, region) to assess whether a directional reversal or an expanded “EAIR” approximation is emerging in New Zealand English.