Duración del pie y acortamiento polisilábico entre los hablantes árabes de ingles

This study investigates a neglected aspect of second language acquisition. It compares the timing patterns adopted by speakers of English as a foreign language with those of English native speakers. The paper aims to explore the extent to which Arab speakers, whose L1 is not as stress-timed as English is, can acquire the mechanisms of polysyllabic shortening in English. Three groups (English native speakers and two groups of Jordanian speakers of English) were requested to read three sets of monosyllabic, disyllabic and trisyllabic words in a carrier sentence. The total length of the word and the vowel duration in all the words were measured. Clear differences between the native speaker group and the non-native speaker groups were attested. Results show that isochronous foot duration and polysyllabic shortening are a tendency in English speech timing, rather than a fundamental process. Furthermore, acquiring the timing patterns of the stress-timed English rhythm is challenging to Arab speakers.Este estudio investiga un aspecto poco abordado de la adquisición de una segunda lengua. Compara los patrones temporales adoptados por los hablantes de inglés como lengua extranjera con aquellos propios de los anglohablantes nativos. El objetivo del artículo es averiguar la medida en la que los locutores árabes -cuya L1 no es acentualmente acompasada como lo es el inglés- pueden adquirir los mecanismos del acortamiento polisilábico de esta lengua. Se pidió a tres grupos de hablantes (uno de anglohablantes nativos y dos de hablantes jordanos de inglés) que leyeran tres conjuntos de palabras monosílabas, disílabas y trisílabas en una frase portadora. Se midió la longitud total de la palabra y la duración de la vocal en todas esas palabras, y se hallaron claras diferencias entre el grupo de hablantes nativos y los dos de no nativos. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que en la temporización del habla en inglés la duración isócrona del pie y el acortamiento polisilábico constituyen más una tendencia que un proceso fundamental. Además, se comprueba que la adquisición de los patrones temporales del ritmo acentualmente acompasado del inglés es un desafío para los hablantes árabes

Supremacy of suprasegmentals in Arabic phonology: Evidence from malapropisms

Speech errors are an important source of information to understand language processing and production. Earlier research focused on different types of errors including semantic and phonological errors while malapropisms, which refer to slips of the tongue involving whole word substitutions that share phonological similarities but are not related semantically, have not received adequate attention in the Arabic language. Drawing on malapropisms in Jordanian Arabic, we bring evidence on the supremacy of suprasegmental phonological aspects in Arabic phonology. This is unexpected as stress in Arabic is non-phonemic and fully predictable, besides Arabic rhythm is much less stress-timed than that of Germanic languages. Data was collected from spontaneous speech over a period of three years. Results showed that malapropisms share the primary stress position, the number of syllables and the word rhythmic pattern with the target words. To a lesser degree, the target and the error share the same rime and initial segments. Findings suggest that suprasegmental features are very crucial in Arabic phonology, like in Indo-European languages. Evidence suggests that formal similarity that is based on the syllabic and metrical structure of words plays a significant role in language processing and the organization of the mental lexicon in Arabic, which suggests that this is a language universal. Furthermore, our findings do not agree with earlier claims that Arabic has a flat syllabic structure. Rather, evidence suggests that Arabic, like English, has a hierarchical syllable structure, which seems to represent another language universal. More research on other Arabic dialects is recommended to corroborate these findings. Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. * Corresponding author: Mohammed Nour Abu Guba, 0000-0002-5007-6439   [email protected]

Attitudes toward Jordanian Arabic-Accented English among Native and Non-native Speakers of English

This paper explores attitudes toward Jordanian Arabic-accented English among native and non-native speakers of English. Three groups of listeners (native English speakers, Jordanian Arab specialists and non-specialists in English) were asked to rate three groups of speakers (a group of native English speakers and two groups of Jordanian Arabic bilinguals) reading a short story in English on the degree of foreign accentedness, friendliness, pleasantness and clarity. The results showed that the Jordanian Arabic speakers, especially those with a lower level of English, were perceived less favourably than the native speakers. Furthermore, the English native listeners generally had more favourable perceptions than the non-native listeners with regard to the non-native speakers. The degree of foreign-accentedness was highly correlated with attitudes toward non-native speakers, especially among the non-native speakers themselves. The results confirm that a native English accent is preferred over non-native accents

Acquisition of stress in the speech of Ammani Arabic-speaking children

Objectives: The aim of this research is to examine the developmental stages of acquiring stress in the speech of Ammani Arabic-speaking children (henceforth AASC). Methods: Elicited and spontaneous speech productions of 48 typically developing children were transcribed and coded with the primary stress. Words were also analyzed according to their metrical shapes. The children were divided into four age groups: (1; 0–1; 6), (1; 7–2; 0), (2; 1–2; 6), and (2; 7–3; 0). Data were collected through spontaneous speech samples and picture-naming tasks. Results: Acquisition of stress goes through the four developmental stages until they become adult-like at the age of 3. Children misplace stress in the first two age stages, using an iambic foot in forms having a trochic shape. Thus, they place stress on a syllable with a geminate irrespective of the weight of other syllables. The stress shift stopped when children reached 30 months. Results support the neutral-start hypothesis which shows that children have no bias for any stress type; instead they use both trochaic and iambic feet at the outset of speaking. Conclusion: It was shown that adult weak forms are more likely to be omitted in children's production, and stressed and final ones are often preserved. This conforms with the widely accepted Perceptual Salience