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The interaction of acoustic and orthographic input in the acquisition of Spanish assibilated/fricative rhotics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

YASAMAN RAFAT
YASAMAN RAFAT*
Affiliation:
Western University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Yasaman Rafat, Modern Languages & Literatures, Western University, University College Building, Room 115, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada. E-mail: yrafat@uwo.ca
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Abstract

There is growing evidence that exposure to orthographic input affects second language phonological acquisition. This study examined the effects of auditory–orthographic interactions on second language assibilated/fricative rhotic productions of 20 naive English speakers of Spanish, with an acoustic–phonetic approach. The participants were assigned to two groups: auditory-only and auditory–orthographic. The results were indicative of a higher rate of both assibilated/fricative rhotics and approximant rhotics in the auditory–orthographic group. In addition, there was evidence that the acoustic input modulated the orthographic effects. However, the auditory-only group produced a higher rate of postalveolar sibilants. These results will be discussed in terms of (a) the salience-enhancing effect of the grapheme <r> and (b) the overriding effect of orthography.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 43 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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