Personality and speech production: a pilot study of second language learners

This pilot study investigates the second language acquisition (SLA) of stress in Portuguese (L2) by native speakers of English (L1). In particular, it examines the interaction between extrametricality and default stress through two judgement tasks. Stress is suprasegmental, relative and involves a variety of phonetic correlates: Cross-linguistically, stressed syllables tend to be realized with higher pitch, longer duration and greater intensity—but languages differ as to which of these correlates is more or less signiﬁcant. Phonologically, stress presents some unique characteristics, such as the absence of a categorical feature [±stress]. Languages may also differ as to whether syllable shape affects stress (weight-sensitive) or not (weight-insensitive). Second language learners (L2ers) have to deal with such variability and, more importantly, have to acquire new stress patterns—some of which are often vastly different (even contradictory) when compared to the patterns (and phonetic cues) in their L1.

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Production and perception in the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese

Romance Phonetics and Phonology ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198739401.003.0018 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 367-380

Author(s):

Jaydene Elvin ◽

Polina Vasiliev ◽

Paola Escudero

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Speech Perception ◽

Speech Production ◽

Language Learners ◽

Critical Review ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Speakers Of Other Languages ◽

Large Corpus ◽

Learning To Listen

Learning to listen to and produce the sounds of a new language is a difficult task for many second-language learners. While there is a large corpus of literature that investigates Spanish and Portuguese learners’ perception and production of an L;2, particularly English, there is relatively little research available for the opposite scenario, namely, how speakers of other languages learn to perceive and produce the sounds of Spanish and Portuguese. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a critical review of the available literature in this less studied area. First some general facts relating to non-native and L;2 speech perception and production are presented, including the theoretical models that aim at explaining these phenomena. A review follows of the empirical findings currently available for L;2 speech production and perception in Spanish and Portuguese, and how these two abilities relate in the process of acquiring the sounds of these languages.

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Second Language Phonetics

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.415 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Ocke-Schwen Bohn

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Speech Perception ◽

Speech Production ◽

Language Learners ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Native Language ◽

Social Consequences ◽

Learning Ability ◽

Research Areas ◽

Second Language Speech Production

The study of second language phonetics is concerned with three broad and overlapping research areas: the characteristics of second language speech production and perception, the consequences of perceiving and producing nonnative speech sounds with a foreign accent, and the causes and factors that shape second language phonetics. Second language learners and bilinguals typically produce and perceive the sounds of a nonnative language in ways that are different from native speakers. These deviations from native norms can be attributed largely, but not exclusively, to the phonetic system of the native language. Non-nativelike speech perception and production may have both social consequences (e.g., stereotyping) and linguistic–communicative consequences (e.g., reduced intelligibility). Research on second language phonetics over the past ca. 30 years has resulted in a fairly good understanding of causes of nonnative speech production and perception, and these insights have to a large extent been driven by tests of the predictions of models of second language speech learning and of cross-language speech perception. It is generally accepted that the characteristics of second language speech are predominantly due to how second language learners map the sounds of the nonnative to the native language. This mapping cannot be entirely predicted from theoretical or acoustic comparisons of the sound systems of the languages involved, but has to be determined empirically through tests of perceptual assimilation. The most influential learner factors which shape how a second language is perceived and produced are the age of learning and the amount and quality of exposure to the second language. A very important and far-reaching finding from research on second language phonetics is that age effects are not due to neurological maturation which could result in the attrition of phonetic learning ability, but to the way phonetic categories develop as a function of experience with surrounding sound systems.

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Cross-language activation in children’s speech production: Evidence from second language learners, bilinguals, and trilinguals

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology ◽

10.1016/j.jecp.2011.09.008 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 111 (3) ◽

pp. 419-438 ◽

Cited By ~ 74

Author(s):

Gregory J. Poarch ◽

Janet G. van Hell

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Speech Production ◽

Language Learners ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Language Activation ◽

Cross Language ◽

Children's Speech

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The value of phonetics and pronunciation teaching for advanced learners of English

Linguistica ◽

10.4312/linguistica.57.1.45-58 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 45-58

Author(s):

Gwen Brekelmans

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Speech Production ◽

Language Learners ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Task Type ◽

Minor Effect ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Studying Abroad ◽

A Minor

Pronunciation is an essential part of acquiring a second language, but far too often little time is spent on teaching it (Kelly 1969). It seems as if it is generally thought that pronunciation is something that will develop on its own, yet learners are still assumed to maintain a certain level. This paper investigates the effects of explicit pronunciation and phonetics teaching on the English speech production of advanced Dutch learners of English. The pronunciation of advanced university learners was investigated at several points over a period of three years, halfway during which their pronunciation teaching was stopped. The effect this termination had on their speech production was investigated, as well as any task-specific differences in read versus spontaneous speech. Also studied was the potential influence of studying abroad and taking English-taught courses. Overall, this study shows that explicit teaching has a clear effect on the pronunciation of the learners. Some features of pronunciation turn out to be more robust than others, and the task type has an unmistakeable influence on the native-like quality of the learners’ pronunciation, while there was only a minor effect of general exposure to English. Altogether, the value of explicit phonetics and pronunciation teaching turns out to be quite high for advanced second language learners, and once they acquire a certain level they are able to maintain a stable accent.

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A Pilot Study on the Use of Pronouns in Oral Productions of Spanish as a Second Language

10.29007/4bkm ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kim Collewaert ◽

An Vande Casteele

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Pilot Study ◽

Language Learners ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Spanish Language ◽

Personal Pronouns ◽

Null Subject ◽

French And English ◽

Subject Pronoun

In this paper, some preliminary results on the use of pronouns in oral discourse of language learners of Spanish will be discussed. The article mainly focuses on the use of different kinds of personal pronouns and the pro-drop phenomenon, namely the existence of a null subject, typical of the Spanish language. The absence of an explicit subject due to a rich verbal conjugation opposes Spanish to other languages, such as French, English and Dutch, where an explicit subject pronoun is obligatory.As to investigate the use of the pronouns by language learners of Spanish, we compiled a corpus of oral productions of second language learners of Spanish who are all native speakers of Dutch and also learned French and English, which means that for them the pro-drop phenomenon is new. We will investigate which kinds of pronouns are used in which syntactic contexts and indicate in what contexts the use of a pronoun is not required. Next to this, we observe in our learners’ corpus an unnecessary repetition of proper names and an over-use of personal pronouns as subjects. This can be related to the concept of "over-explicitation" or "overspecification", whereby learners of a second language tend to use more explicit forms than necessary.

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