Acquiring a new second language contrast: an analysis of the English laryngeal system of native speakers of Dutch

This study examines the acquisition of the English laryngeal system by native speakers of (Belgian) Dutch. Both languages have a two-way laryngeal system, but while Dutch contrasts prevoiced with short-lag stops, English has a contrast between short-lag and long-lag stops. The primary aim of the article is to test two hypotheses on the acquisition process based on first language acquisition research: (1) native speakers of a voicing language will succeed in producing short-lag stops in the target aspirating language, since short-lag stops occur early in first language acquisition and can be considered unmarked and since one member of the contrast is formed by short-lag stops in both voicing and aspirating languages, and (2) native speakers of a voicing language will succeed in acquiring long-lag stops in the target language, because aspiration is an acoustically salient realization. The analysis is based on an examination of natural speech data (conversations between dyads of informants), combined with the results of a controlled reading task. Both types of data were gathered in Dutch as well as in Eng(Dutch) (i.e. the English speech of native speakers of Dutch). The analysis revealed an interesting pattern: while the first language (L1) Dutch speakers were successful in acquiring long-lag aspirated stops (confirming hypothesis 2), they did not acquire English short-lag stops (rejecting hypothesis 1). Instead of the target short-lag stops, the L1 Dutch speakers produced prevoiced stops and frequently transferred regressive voice assimilation with voiced stops as triggers from Dutch into English. Various explanations for this pattern in terms of acoustic salience, perceptual cues and training will be considered

Native Speaker Perceptions of Accented Speech: The English Pronunciation of Macedonian EFL Learners

The paper reports on the results of a study that aimed to describe the vocalic and consonantal features of the English pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners as perceived by native speakers of English and to find out whether native speakers who speak different standard variants of English perceive the same segments as non-native. A specially designed computer web application was employed to gather two types of data: a) quantitative (frequency of segment variables and global foreign accent ratings on a 5-point scale), and b) qualitative (open-ended questions). The result analysis points out to three most frequent markers of foreign accent in the English speech of Macedonian EFL learners: final obstruent devoicing, vowel shortening and substitution of English dental fricatives with Macedonian dental plosives. It also reflects additional phonetic aspects poorly explained in the available reference literature such as allophonic distributional differences between the two languages and intonational mismatch

Voicing in Contrast. Acquiring a Second Language Laryngeal System

Drawing on both rule-based and constraint-based approaches, Voicing in Contrast examines typological differences in the laryngeal systems of Dutch and English and investigates the extent to which native speakers of Dutch acquire English obstruent voicing. The analysis is based on a substantial new data collection of conversational Dutch and English speech by speakers of different varieties of Dutch. The results of the study show that the English interlanguage of advanced learners contains a mixed laryngeal system with elements from Dutch as well as from English. The book discusses how this system could emerge and analyses the extent to which learners succeeded in suppressing neutralizing processes of devoicing and voice assimilation. The results of the empirical analysis are examined in the light of existing theoretical approaches to laryngeal systems. Although the focus is on Dutch and English, the frequent references to other languages invite the reader to carry out comparable analyses for other languages with similar laryngeal systems. A detailed description of the methodology also makes the book of interest to scholars working with large databases of spoken first and second language speech. A sample of the data is available on a CD-rom accompanying the book

Temporal and spatial aspects concerning the realizations of the voicing contrast in German alveolar and postalveolar fricatives

International audienceThis study investigates the phonetic realisations of voicing contrast in alveolar and postalveolar fricatives production in different word positions in order to understand the temporal and spatial production strategies used in the control of voicing and frication, and to provide a frame of reference for speech therapy despite the inter-speaker variation. Seven native speakers of German, originally coming from various regions, participated in the experiment. Acoustic signals were recorded onto DAT, and tongue palate contact patterns were recorded by means of electropalatography (EPG). The temporal parameters were measured using the acoustic signals and the spatial parameters were measured based on the EPG data. The corpus included real words with /s, z, S, Z/ occurring at word initial, medial and final positions. Temporal results showed that differences in the overall frication duration for voicing contrast occur at almost all positions (with longer duration for voiceless phonemes). However, voicing during the frication interval was a less reliable discriminator, particularly for Southern German speakers and at word final position. We found a positive correlation between the relative voicing duration and the amount of tongue palate contact for subjects who produced voicing. Especially for the postalveolars, voicing also coincides with more front articulation. Results are discussed with respect to laryngeal-oral co-ordination and aerodynamics

Voicing of Intervocalic Fricatives in Welsh and Welsh English

This thesis presents an acoustic investigation into the production of voicing in Welsh-English bilingual speakers. It contributes to previous research into devoicing and focuses on providing more research into Welsh fricatives. The study consists of analysing the production of fricatives in intervocalic position by 4 Welsh-English bilingual speakers. The amount of voicing produced, place of articulation, vowel height, and duration were investigated to make a comparative analysis between Welsh and Welsh English. The results showed no difference in the production of voicing between Welsh and English [+/-voice] fricatives, but the descriptive results did show differences demonstrating that participants were more consistent at producing voicing in Welsh than in English

When is a Syllable not a Syllable?

This paper reviews evidence for unifying two seemingly disparate types of syllable reduction phenomena: the elision of reduced vowels in English and German, and the devocalization of high vowels in Japanese, Korean, and Montreal French. Both types of "casual speech rule" can be understood as extreme endpoints of a phonetic continuum of gestural overlap. The vowel is seemingly deleted or devoiced when the gestures of neighboring consonants encroach so completely into the space for the affected vowel that the relevant vowel gesture(s) leave no salient acoustic trace. However, in some cases in some of these languages, the reduction has been phonologically reanalyzed, so that the word loses a syllable. The paper explores the circumstances under which such reanalysis can occur

Laryngeal stop systems in contact: connecting present-day acquisition findings and historical contact hypotheses

This article examines the linguistic forces at work in present-day second language and bilingual acquisition of laryngeal contrasts, and to what extent these can give us insight into the origin of laryngeal systems of Germanic voicing languages like Dutch, with its contrast between prevoiced and unaspirated stops. The results of present-day child and adult second language acquisition studies reveal that both imposition and borrowing may occur when the laryngeal systems of a voicing and an aspirating language come into contact with each other. A scenario is explored in which socially dominant Germanic-speaking people came into contact with a Romance-speaking population, and borrowed the Romance stop system