Salvadorian-Accented English Vowels Produced by Teachers of English as a Foreign Language

English has spread in the world and it has become the international language of business and without a doubt, the most important language spoken and taught as a foreign language in Latin America. El Salvador is a country in Central America and this study presents information about the production of vowels by foreign speakers of English in this country. This is a replication of the studies conducted by Peterson and Barney (1952) and Hillenbrand, Getty, Wheeler, and Clark (1994). The participants of the study include English as a Foreign Language teachers in El Salvador. The information of Salvadorian-accented vowels includes information about six correlates including the formats F0, F1, F2, F3, duration, and intensity. The focus of the study is to assess intelligibility levels within Salvadorian-accented vowels and in comparison, with General American English which is conducted by analyzing data for the format one. Data and analysis is also conducted for the rest of the correlates because they also contribute to get an accurate representation of Salvadorian-accented vowels that can help determine how each of the vowel sounds is produced in Salvadorian Speech. The study also provides with conclusions, pedagogical implications, and potential future research in the field of Phonetics

The role of vowel hyperarticulation in clear speech to foreigners and infants

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonResearch on clear speech has shown that the type of clear speech produced can vary depending on the speaker, the listener and the medium. Although prior research has suggested that clear speech is more intelligible than conversational speech for normal-hearing listeners in noisy environments, it is not known which acoustic features of clear speech are the most responsible for enhanced intelligibility and comprehension. This thesis focused on investigating the acoustic characteristics that are produced in clear speech to foreigners and infants. Its aim was to assess the utility of these features in enhancing speech intelligibility and comprehension. The results of Experiment 1 showed that native speakers produced exaggerated vowel space in natural interactions with foreign-accented listeners compared to native-accented listeners. Results of Experiment 2 indicated that native speakers exaggerated vowel space and pitch to infants compared to clear read speech. Experiments 3 and 4 focused on speech perception and used transcription and clarity rating tasks. Experiment 3 contained speech directed at foreigners and showed that speech to foreign-accented speakers was rated clearer than speech to native-accented speakers. Experiment 4 contained speech directed at infants and showed that native speakers rated infant-directed speech as clearer than clear read speech. In the fifth and final experiment, naturally elicited clear speech towards foreign-accented interlocutors was used in speech comprehension tasks for native and non-native listeners with varying proficiency of English. It was revealed that speech with expanded vowel space improved listeners’ comprehension of speech in quiet and noise conditions. Results are discussed in terms of the Lindblom’s (1990) theory of Hyper and Hypoarticulation, an influential framework of speech production and perception.Brunel University Isambard Research Scholarshi

The phonological development of adult Japanese learners of English : a longitudinal study of perception and production.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN042757 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Segmental foreign accent

200 p.Tradicionalmente, el acento extranjero se ha estudiado desde una perspectiva holística, es decir, tratándolo como un todo en lugar de como una serie de rasgos individuales que suceden simultáneamente. Los estudios previos que se han centrado en alguno de estos rasgos individuales lo han hecho generalmente en el plano suprasegmental (Tajima et al., 1997, Munro & Derwing, 2001, Hahn, 2004, etc.). En esta tesis se lleva a cabo un análisis del acento extranjero desde un punto de vista segmental. Considerando que no existe mucha investigación en este campo, nuestro principal objetivo es averiguar si los resultados de estudios holísticos previos pueden ser extrapolados al nivel segmental. Con el objetivo de analizar el nivel segmental en detalle, en esta tesis se presentan técnicas que hacen uso de nuevas tecnologías. Para recabar la mayor información posible, los experimentos perceptivos son llevados a cabo con oyentes con muy distintos perfiles lingüísticos en términos de primera lengua o conocimiento de la segunda lengua y comparados con la literatura existente. Nuestros resultados muestran que algunos efectos importantes relativos a la producción y percepción de segmentos acentuados pueden pasar inadvertidos en un análisis holístico y acreditan la necesidad de continuar realizando estudios de unidades mínimas para comprender en profundidad los efectos del acento extranjero en la comunicación

Segmental foreign accent

200 p.Tradicionalmente, el acento extranjero se ha estudiado desde una perspectiva holística, es decir, tratándolo como un todo en lugar de como una serie de rasgos individuales que suceden simultáneamente. Los estudios previos que se han centrado en alguno de estos rasgos individuales lo han hecho generalmente en el plano suprasegmental (Tajima et al., 1997, Munro & Derwing, 2001, Hahn, 2004, etc.). En esta tesis se lleva a cabo un análisis del acento extranjero desde un punto de vista segmental. Considerando que no existe mucha investigación en este campo, nuestro principal objetivo es averiguar si los resultados de estudios holísticos previos pueden ser extrapolados al nivel segmental. Con el objetivo de analizar el nivel segmental en detalle, en esta tesis se presentan técnicas que hacen uso de nuevas tecnologías. Para recabar la mayor información posible, los experimentos perceptivos son llevados a cabo con oyentes con muy distintos perfiles lingüísticos en términos de primera lengua o conocimiento de la segunda lengua y comparados con la literatura existente. Nuestros resultados muestran que algunos efectos importantes relativos a la producción y percepción de segmentos acentuados pueden pasar inadvertidos en un análisis holístico y acreditan la necesidad de continuar realizando estudios de unidades mínimas para comprender en profundidad los efectos del acento extranjero en la comunicación

English Education in Japan from the Perspective of a Japanese Student

According English Proficiency Index (EPI) of 2019, p. 24, English proficiency in Japan is low, i.e., 53rd in the world. In this paper, we attempt to understand why this is so despite Japan’s excellent political, economic, and military relationship with the USA. The experiences of the third author, a native speaker of Japanese, who studied English in Japan serves as a launching pad for our investigation. We interface her experience with pedagogical practices, cultural norms surrounding pronunciation feedback, and English proficiency expectations and delve deeper into our inquiry. We also examine the third author’s current proficiency level in English now that she has been living in the USA and studying at Saint Cloud State University (SCSU) for 18 months. The analysis of her social network and the acoustic phonetic measurements of her vowels reveal that her intelligibility has improved greatly. Additionally, and maybe more importantly, her English learning experiences in Japan and in the USA and the insights we derive from them can help other Japanese speakers improve their oral proficiency

The Acoustic Correlates of Lexical Stress in Disyllabic Words in El Salvadorian-Accented English

Experiments on lexical stress in English conducted by Fry (1955, 1958) propose that the acoustic correlate strategy is F0\u3eDuration\u3eIntensity. The results of his findings provide good insights on American English speaker’s perception and production of lexical stress in disyllabic homographs. On the other hand, some studies conducted in Spanish lexical stress propose that the most prominent acoustic correlate is duration (Ortega-Llebaria and Prieto, 2010); another study propose that intensity is a relevant cue when marking lexical stress (Urrutia, 2007). Other studies have investigated English lexical stress produced by Spanish speakers (Edmunds, 2009). Such experiments have analyzed Spanish produced by speakers from Spain or Chile, but not from Central America. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate acoustic correlates of lexical stress in disyllabic words in El Salvadorian-accented English and their impact on intelligibility. Eight disyllabic words were analyzed using TextGrids created in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). The words were recorded from and produced by 21 Salvadorian (11 female and 10 male) speakers of English. The recordings were retrieved from the Speech Accent Archive website (Weinberger, 2015). Three acoustic correlates of lexical stress (F0, duration and intensity) were measured, and Just Noticeable Differences (JND’s) were used to judge which acoustic correlate speakers employed to mark stress. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics that provided summaries about the measurements. The results of the study showed the acoustic correlate strategy employed by female and male speakers respectively. Moreover, results yielded information that had not been foreseen at the beginning of the study, but that would be interesting to research further

The Acoustic Correlates of Stress-Shifting Suffixes in Native and Nonnative English

Although laboratory phonology techniques have been widely employed to discover the interplay between the acoustic correlates of English Lexical Stress (ELS)–fundamental frequency, duration, and intensity - studies on ELS in polysyllabic words are rare, and cross-linguistic acoustic studies in this area are even rarer. Consequently, the effects of language experience on L2 lexical stress acquisition are not clear. This investigation of adult Arabic (Saudi Arabian) and Mandarin (Mainland Chinese) speakers analyzes their ELS production in tokens with seven different stress-shifting suffixes; i.e., Level 1 [+cyclic] derivations to phonologists. Stress productions are then systematically analyzed and compared with those of speakers of Midwest American English using the acoustic phonetic software, Praat. In total, one hundred subjects participated in the study, spread evenly across the three language groups, and 2,125 vowels in 800 spectrograms were analyzed (excluding stress placement and pronunciation errors). Nonnative speakers completed a sociometric survey prior to recording so that statistical sampling techniques could be used to evaluate acquisition of accurate ELS production. The speech samples of native speakers were analyzed to provide norm values for cross-reference and to provide insights into the proposed Salience Hierarchy of the Acoustic Correlates of Stress (SHACS). The results support the notion that a SHACS does exist in the L1 sound system, and that native-like command of this system through accurate ELS production can be acquired by proficient L2 learners via increased L2 input. Other findings raise questions as to the accuracy of standard American English dictionary pronunciations as well as the generalizability of claims made about the acoustic properties of tonic accent shift