Email this article 
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF SECOND LANGUAGE SPANISH VOWELS: A CORPUS STUDY / NUEVAS PERSPECTIVAS SOBRE LA PRONUNCIACIÓN DE LAS VOCALES DEL ESPAÑOL EN UNA SEGUNDA LENGUA: UN ESTUDIO DE CORPUS
Abstract
This study focuses on the acquisition of the Spanish vowel system by English-speaking L2 learners. The vowel inventory of Spanish varies greatly from the English vowel system, yet the two are not normally differentiated in instructional strategies. We focus primarily on the mispronunciation of vowels, as they are critical to verb morphology in Spanish, as well as their mispronunciation can lead to confusion between minimal pairs in Spanish (e.g., reino ‘kingdom’ vs. reno ‘reindeer’). Using the Corpus Oral de Español como Lengua Extranjera (ELE), we explored the most frequent types of mistakes produced by these learners in their pronunciation of Spanish vowels. Analysis showed that these mispronunciations included, but was not limited to, vowel reduction or vowel alternation. Moreover, the study concludes with an interpretation of plausible sources of this problem as well as discussing the role of vowel mispronunciations in L2 learner’s intelligibility.
Este estudio se centra en la adquisición del sistema vocálico español por parte de estudiantes de L2 de habla inglesa. El inventario de vocales del español varía mucho del sistema de vocales del inglés, sin embargo, estas diferencias no se incluyen normalmente en las estrategias de instrucción. Este estudio se enfoca principalmente en las pronunciaciones incorrectas de las vocales, ya que son fundamentales para la morfología verbal en español, ya que una pronunciación incorrecta puede generar confusión entre pares mínimos en español (por ejemplo, reino vs. reno). Utilizando el Corpus Oral de Español como Lengua Extranjera (ELE), exploramos los tipos de errores más frecuentes que los aprendices ingleses producen en la pronunciación de las vocales del español. El análisis mostró que estas pronunciaciones incorrectas incluían, pero no se limitaban a, reducciones o alternancias vocálicas. Además, el estudio concluye con una interpretación de los orígenes plausibles de este problema, así como con la discusión del papel de las pronunciaciones incorrectas de las vocales en la inteligibilidad del alumno de L2.
Article visualizations:
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Allen, G. D. 1978. “Vowel duration measurement: A reliability study.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 63 (4): 1176-1185.
Alzugaray, P., M. J. Barrios, and C. Hernández. 2006. Preparación al Diploma intermedio Español Lengua Extranjera. 1ª edición. Madrid: Edelsa.
Andersen, H. 1972. “Diphthongization. Language: 11-50.
Assmann, P. F., T. M. Nearey, and J. T. Hogan. 1982. “Vowel identification: Orthographic, perceptual, and acoustic aspects.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 71 (4): 975-989.
Baker, A. 2014. “Exploring teachers' knowledge of second language pronunciation techniques: Teacher cognitions, observed classroom practices, and student perceptions.” Tesol Quarterly 48 (1): 136-163.
Boersma, P. and D. Weenink, D. 2010. Praat: doing phonetics by computers. Retrieved from http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/
Bohn, O. S. and J. E. Flege. 1992. “The production of new and similar vowels by adult German learners of English.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14 (2): 131-158.
Borzone de Manrique, A. M. 1979. “Acoustic analysis of the Spanish diphthongs.” Phonetica 36 (3): 194-206.
Bradlow, A. R. 1995. “A comparative acoustic study of English and Spanish vowels.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97 (3): 1916-1924.
Bustos Gisbert, J. M. 1998. “Análisis de errores: problemas de categorización.” Dicenda: Cuadernos de filología hispánica 16, 11-40.
Campillos Llanos, L. 2014. “A Spanish oral learner corpus for computer-aided error analysis.” Corpora 9 (2): 207–238.
Cho, M. H. and S. Lee. 2016. “The impact of different L1 and L2 learning experience in the acquisition of L1 phonological processes.” Language Sciences 56, 30-44.
Cobb, K. N. 2009. La pronunciación de vocales átonas en español: La aplicación de reglas fonológicas por parte de hablantes no-nativos del español (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Arizona, USA.
Cobb, K. and M. Simonet. 2010. “Unstressed vowel reduction in English-accented Spanish.” In Linguistics Symposium on Romance Languages (Vol. 40), University of Washington.
Cowie, I. and S. A. Jun. 1991. “Interference for “new” versus “similar” vowels in Korean speakers of English.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 89 (4B): 1936-1936.
Cresti, E. and M. Moneglia. 2005. C-Oral-Rom: Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 13.
Cutler, A., A. Weber, and T. Otake. 2006. “Asymmetric mapping from phonetic to lexical representations in second-language listening.” Journal of Phonetics 34 (2): 269-284.
Dlaska, A. and C. Krekeler. 2008. “Self-assessment of pronunciation.” System 36 (4): 506-516.
Derwing, T. M. and M. J. Munro. 2015. Pronunciation fundamentals: Evidence-based perspectives for L2 teaching and research. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Deterding, D. 1997. “The formants of monophthong vowels in Standard Southern British English pronunciation.” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 27 (1-2): 47-55.
Elliott, A. R. 1997. “On the teaching and acquisition of pronunciation within a communicative approach.” Hispania: 95-108.
Escudero, P. 2005. Linguistic Perception and Second Language Acquisition: Explaining the Attainment of Optimal Phonological Categorization. PhD thesis, LOT Dissertation Series 113, Utrecht University.
Escudero, P. 2015. “Orthography plays a limited role when learning the phonological forms of new words: The case of Spanish and English learners of novel Dutch words.” Applied Psycholinguistics 36 (1): 7-22.
Escudero, P., M. Broersma, and E. Simon. 2013. “Learning words in a third language: Effects of vowel inventory and language proficiency.” Language and Cognitive Processes 28 (6): 746-761.
Escudero, P., R. Hayes-Harb, and H. Mitterer. 2008. “Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access.” Journal of Phonetics 36 (2): 345-360.
Fernández, S. 1997. Interlengua y análisis de errores en el aprendizaje del español como lengua extranjera. Edelsa: Grupo Didascalia.
Flege, J. E. 1988. “The production and perception of speech sounds in a foreign language.” In Human communication and its disorders, A review, ed. H. Winitz, 224–401. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Flege, J. E. 1995. Second language speech learning: Theory, findings and problems. In Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience, ed. W. Strange, 233–277. Timonium, MD: York Press.
Flege, J. E. 2003. Assessing constraints on second-language segmental production and perception. In Phonetics and phonology in language comprehension and production, differences and similarities, eds. A. Meyer, & N. Schiller, 319–355. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Flege, J. E., O. S. Bohn, and S. Jang. 1997. “Effects of experience on non-native speakers' production and perception of English vowels.” Journal of phonetics 25 (4): 437-470.
Flege, J. E. and S. Liu. 2001. “The effect of experience on adults’ acquisition of a second language.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23 (4): 527-552.
Flemming, E. 2009. “The phonetics of schwa vowels.” Phonological weakness in English: 78-95.
Foster, D. W., D. Altamiranda, and C. de Urioste. 1999. The writer's reference guide to Spanish. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Garcia Bayonas, M. G. 2004. The acquisition of vowels in Spanish and English as a second language. Indiana University, Bloomington dissertation.
Garcia Bayonas, M. G. 2007. The acquisition of vowels in Spanish and English as second language. Lincom Europa.
Gil Fernández, J. 2007. Fonética para profesores de español: de la teoría a la práctica. Madrid: Arco Libros.
Gil Fernández, J. (ed.) 2012. Aproximación a la enseñanza de la pronunciación en el aula de español. Madrid: Edinumen.
González Barrera, M. del C. 2010. Predicción y solución de dificultades que un alumno de habla inglesa pueda tener al aprender fonética española. Biblioteca virtual redELE, 11. Red Electrónica de Didáctica del Español como Lengua Extranjera. Consultado en http://www.mecd.gob.es/redele/Biblioteca-Virtual/2010/memoriaMaster/1Trimestre/MaikaGonzalez.html
Granger, S. 2003. “Error-tagged Learner Corpora and CALL: a promising synergy.” CALICO Journal 20 (3): 465-480.
Guion, S. G. 2003. “The vowel systems of Quichua-Spanish bilinguals.” Phonetica 60 (2): 98-128.
Hansen Edwards, J. G. and M. L. Zampini (eds.). 2008. Phonology and Second Language Acquisition. Vol. 36. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
Harris, J. W. 1969. Spanish phonology. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hayes-Harb, R., J. Nicol, and J. Barker. 2010. “Learning the phonological forms of new words: Effects of orthographic and auditory input.” Language and Speech 53 (3): 367-381.
Hayes-Harb, R. and K. Masuda. 2008. “Development of the ability to lexically encode novel second language phonemic contrasts.” Second Language Research 24 (1): 5-33.
Hillenbrand, J., L. A. Getty, M. J. Clark, and K. Wheeler. 1995. “Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels.” The Journal of the Acoustical society of America 97 (5): 3099-3111.
Hualde, J. I. and M. Prieto. 2002. “On the diphthong/hiatus contrast in Spanish: some experimental results.” Linguistics 40 (2): 217-234.
Iverson, P. and B. Evans. 2007. “Learning English vowels with different first-language vowel systems: perception of formant targets, formant movement, and duration.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 122 (5): 2842–2854.
Iverson, P. and B. Evans. 2009. “Learning English vowels with different first-language vowel systems II: auditory training for native Spanish and German speakers.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 126 (2): 866–877.
James, C. 1998. Errors in Language Learning and Use. Exploring Error Analysis. London/ New York: Longman. Applied Linguistics and Language Study Series.
Klatt, D. H. 1976. “Linguistic uses of segmental duration in English: Acoustic and perceptual evidence.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 59 (5): 1208-1221.
Krashen, S. D. 1988. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Prentice-Hall International.
Ladefoged, P. 1975. A Course in phonetics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Ladefoged, P. and S. F. Disner. 2012. Vowels and consonants. John Wiley & Sons.
Lass, R. 1984. Phonology: An introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge University Press.
Leussen, V. and P. Escudero. 2015. “Learning to perceive and recognize a second language: the L2LP model revised.” Frontiers in psychology 6: 1000.
McAllister, R., J. E. Flege, and T. Piske. 2002. “The influence of L1 on the acquisition of Swedish quantity by native speakers of Spanish, English and Estonian.” Journal of phonetics 30 (2): 229-258.
Menke, M. R. and T. L. Face. 2010. “Second language Spanish vowel production: An acoustic analysis.” Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 3 (1): 181-214.
Mitchell, R., L. Domínguez, M. Arche, F. Myles, and E. Marsden. 2008. Research Report: Linguistic Development in L2 Spanish: Creation and analysis of a learner corpus. Available in: http://www.splloc.soton.ac.uk/doc/SPLLOC_1_Report_Final.pdf
Morrison, G. S. 2003. “Perception and production of Spanish vowels by English speakers.” In Proceedings of the 15th international congress of phonetic sciences: Barcelona (pp. 1533-1536).
Morrison, G. S. 2006. L1 & L2 production and perception of English and Spanish vowels: A statistical modelling approach (Doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta).
Munro, M. J., J. E. Flege, and I. R. MacKay. 1996. “The effects of age of second language learning on the production of English vowels.” Applied psycholinguistics 17 (3): 313-334.
Nicholls, D. 2003. “The Cambridge Learner Corpus – error coding and analysis for Lexicography and ELT.” In Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2003 Conference (CL 2003), eds. Archer et al., 572-581. Lancaster University: University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on language.
O'Grady, W., M. Dobrovolsky, and M. Aronoff. 1997. Contemporary linguistics. An introduction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Bedford / St Martin's.
Oh, G. E., S. Guion-Anderson, K. Aoyama, J. E. Flege, R. Akahane-Yamada, and T. Yamada. 2011. “A one-year longitudinal study of English and Japanese vowel production by Japanese adults and children in an English-speaking setting.” Journal of phonetics 39 (2): 156-167.
Piske, T., J. E. Flege, I. R. MacKay, and D. Meador. 2002. “The production of English vowels by fluent early and late Italian-English bilinguals.” Phonetica 59 (1): 49-71.
Quilis, A. and M. Esgueva. 1983. “Realización de los fonemas vocálicos españoles en posición fonética normal.” Estudios de fonética 1: 159-252.
Romanelli, S. and A. C. Menegotto. 2015. “English speakers learning Spanish: Perception issues regarding vowels and stress.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research 6 (1): 30-42.
Rosner, B. S. and J. B. Pickering. 1994. Vowel perception and production. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Showalter, C. E. and R. Hayes-Harb. 2013. “Native English speakers learning Arabic: The influence of novel orthographic information on second language phonological acquisition.” Applied psycholinguistics 36 (1): 23-42.
Simon, E., D. Chambless, and U. K. Alves. 2010. “Understanding the role of orthography in the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast.” Language sciences 32 (3): 380-394.
Smolensky, P. 1996. “On the comprehension/production dilemma in child language.” Linguistic inquiry 27 (4): 720-731.
Stevens, K. N. 1959. “The role of duration in vowel identification.” Quarterly Progress Report, 52.
Turk, A. E. and J. R. Sawusch. 1997. “The domain of accentual lengthening in American English.” Journal of Phonetics 25 (1): 25-41.
Vázquez, G. 1999. Errores, ¡sin falta!. Madrid: Edelsa.
Weber, A. and A. Cutler. 2004. “Lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition.” Journal of Memory and Language 50 (1): 1-25.
Zampini, M. L. 1998. “The relationship between the production and perception of L2 Spanish stops.” Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education 3 (3): 85-100.
Zampini, M. L. 2008. “L2 speech production research: Findings, issues, and advances.” In Phonology and Second Language Acquisition, eds. J. G. Hansen Edwards y M. L. Zampini (vol. 36), 225-256. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejals.v5i1.355
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.
Copyright © 2018-2023. European Journal of Applied Linguistics Studies (ISSN 2602 - 0254 / ISSN-L 2602 - 0254). All rights reserved.
This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.
