Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T17:07:54.531Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An Instrumental Study of Vowel Reduction and Stress Placement in Spanish-Accented English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2008

James Emil Flege
Affiliation:
University of Alabama, Birmingham
Ocke-Schwen Bohn
Affiliation:
University of Alabama, Birmingham

Abstract

Morphophonological alternations in English words such as able versus ability involve changes in both stress and vowel quality. This study examined how native speakers of Spanish and English produced four such morphologically related English word pairs. Degree of stress and vowel quality was assessed auditorily and instrumentally. Stress placement generally seemed to constitute less of a learning problem for the native Spanish speakers than vowel reduction. The results suggest that Englishlike stress placement is acquired earlier than vowel reduction and that the ability to unstress vowels is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for vowel reduction. The magnitude of stress and vowel quality differences for the four word pairs suggests that L2 learners acquire stress placement and vowel reduction in English on a word-by-word basis.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, C. (1979). English speech rhythm and the foreign learner. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, C., & Munro, R. R. (1978). In search of the acoustic correlates of stress: Fundamental frequency, amplitude, and duration in the connected utterance of some native and normative speakers of English. Phonetica, 35, 125156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ando, K., & Canter, G. J. (1969). A study of syllabic stress in some English words as produced by deaf and normally hearing speakers. Language and Speech, 15, 247255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinstein, A. E. (1979). A cross-linguistic study on the perception and production of stress. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 47.Google Scholar
Berko, J. (1958). The child's learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohn, O.S. (1986). Formulas, frame structures, and stereotypes in early syntactic development: Some new evidence from L2 acquisition. Linguistics, 24, 185202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, D. L., & Hodapp, M. (1961). Acento melodico. Acento de intensidad. Boletin de Filologia, 13, 3348.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlisle, J. F. (1987). The use of morphological knowledge in spelling derived forms by learning-disabled and normal students. Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research, 89/90, 105120.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, E. (1986). An introduction to English prosody. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. (1969). Prosodic systems and intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Delattre, P. (1966). A comparison of syllable length conditioning among languages. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 4, 183198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derwing, B. L., & Baker, W. J. (1986). Assessing morphological development. In Fletcher, P. & Carman, M. (Eds.), Language acquisition (pp. 326338). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dressler, W. (1985). Morphonology: The dynamics of derivation. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1984). The detection of French accent by American listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 76, 692707.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flege, J. E. (1986). Plasticity in adult and child speech production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 79, S54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E., Fletcher, S., McCutcheon, M., & Smith, S. (1986). The physiological specification of American English vowels. Language and Speech, 29, 361388.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fokes, J., Bond, Z. S., & Steinberg, M. (1984). Patterns of English word stress by native and non-native speakers. In van den Broecke, M. P. R. & Cohen, A. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 682686). Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Foley, J. (1965). Spanish morphology. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Hammond, R. H. (1986). Error analysis and the natural approach to teaching foreign languages. Lenguas Modemas, 13, 129139.Google Scholar
Harris, J. W. (1983). Syllable structure and stress in Spanish. A nonlinear analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hudson, R. (1980). Automatic alternations in non-transformational phonology. Language, 56, 94125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kantner, C. E., & West, R. (1960). Phonetics (5th ed.). New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Kilbury, J. (1976). The development of morphophonemic theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klatt, D. H. (1976). Linguistic uses of segmental duration in English: Acoustic and perceptual evidence. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 59, 12081221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ladefoged, P. (1975). A course in phonetics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (1984). Phonology. An introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lehiste, I. (1970). Suprasegmentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT PressGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, P. (1967). Intonation, perception, and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1975). Rules, rote, and analogy in morphological formations by Hungarian children. Journal of Child Language, 2, 6577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1978). The acquisition of morphophonology. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 43, (1–2, serial no. 174).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, F. (1987, December). Morphological effects in auditory lexical access. Paper presented at the meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar
Natalicio, D. S., & Natalicio, L. F. S. (1971). A comparative study of English pluralization by native and non-native speakers. Child Development, 42, 13021306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navarro, T. (1967). Manual de pronunciatión española (6th ed.). New York: Hafner.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Roach, P. (1982). On the distinction between “stress-timed” and “syllable-timed” languages. In Crystal, D. (Ed.), Linguistic controversies (pp. 7379). London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Sterling, C. M. (1983). Spelling errors in context. British Journal of Psychology, 74, 353364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stockwell, R. P., & Bowen, J. D. (1965). The sounds of English and Spanish. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wode, H. (1981). Learning a second language: Vol. 1. An integrated view of language acquisition. Tubingen: G. Narr.Google Scholar