This dissertation examines the role of the native dialect in non-native perception and production in the specific case of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish as native varieties and of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot as the target. In most second language studies, the learners’ native variety is assumed to be homogenous, regardless of their regional variety. Nevertheless, regional varieties differ in non-trivial ways and such differences need to be considered when analyzing second language acquisition. This dissertation takes shape around the main research question of whether potentially systematic differences between vowels in the native dialects of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish would produce matching phonetic differences in non-native perception and production of English vowels. This question was addressed in three experiments that compared native vowels in these Spanish varieties, as well as the perception and production of the target English vowels as in hat, hut, hot by Cuban and Peninsular Spanish learners. Significant cross-dialectal differences were identified in the production of native vowels, namely, locations of /i, o/, durations of /e, a, o/ as well as different variability patterns, which were predicted to influence mapping of sounds in L2 perception and production. In L2 perception, discrimination for advanced and naïve listeners from each dialect was tested with English contrasts as in hat-hut, hut-hot, and hat-hot. No clear native dialect effect could be identified; however, Cuban advanced listeners obtained high error rates with hut-hot. In L2 production, though, dialect-specific patterns were found: Peninsular learners produced vowels as in hat, hut, hot with significant spectral but no durational differences whereas Cuban learners produced vowels as in hut, hot with no significant spectral but with duration differences. I concluded that the native dialect was one of several factors generating the differences between Peninsular and Cuban participants’ perception and production of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot. The conjoint effect of the native dialect, input and learning experience were shown to have contributed to the distinctions. This finding contributes to second language acquisition research because it stresses the need to control for learners’ native dialect. This research contributed new acoustic data on Cuban Spanish and on L2 English. It uncovered specific patterns and interlanguage strategies of Spanish learners of English.

This dissertation examines the role of the native dialect in non-native perception and production in the specific case of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish as native varieties and of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot as the target. In most second language studies, the learners’ native variety is assumed to be homogenous, regardless of their regional variety. Nevertheless, regional varieties differ in non-trivial ways and such differences need to be considered when analyzing second language acquisition. This dissertation takes shape around the main research question of whether potentially systematic differences between vowels in the native dialects of Cuban and Peninsular Spanish would produce matching phonetic differences in non-native perception and production of English vowels. This question was addressed in three experiments that compared native vowels in these Spanish varieties, as well as the perception and production of the target English vowels as in hat, hut, hot by Cuban and Peninsular Spanish learners. Significant cross-dialectal differences were identified in the production of native vowels, namely, locations of /i, o/, durations of /e, a, o/ as well as different variability patterns, which were predicted to influence mapping of sounds in L2 perception and production. In L2 perception, discrimination for advanced and naïve listeners from each dialect was tested with English contrasts as in hat-hut, hut-hot, and hat-hot. No clear native dialect effect could be identified; however, Cuban advanced listeners obtained high error rates with hut-hot. In L2 production, though, dialect-specific patterns were found: Peninsular learners produced vowels as in hat, hut, hot with significant spectral but no durational differences whereas Cuban learners produced vowels as in hut, hot with no significant spectral but with duration differences. I concluded that the native dialect was one of several factors generating the differences between Peninsular and Cuban participants’ perception and production of English vowels as in hat, hut, hot. The conjoint effect of the native dialect, input and learning experience were shown to have contributed to the distinctions. This finding contributes to second language acquisition research because it stresses the need to control for learners’ native dialect. This research contributed new acoustic data on Cuban Spanish and on L2 English. It uncovered specific patterns and interlanguage strategies of Spanish learners of English.

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No description available.

The present study is an investigation of acoustic correlates corresponding to the category [voice] in two dialects of Venezuelan Spanish. The Andean mountain dialect Mérida (MER) and Caribbean coastal dialect Margarita (MAR) are thought to differ systematically in the phonetic implementation of the Spanish phonological stop series along the lines of lowland and highland divides commonly reported for Latin American Spanish. Specifically, MER has been characterized by a greater percentage of occlusive pronunciations, MAR by more fricative and/or approximant realizations of phonological stops. To test what repercussions these differences in consonant articulation have on the acoustic correlates that encode [voice], a production experiment was run. Informants were 25 adult monolingual speakers of Venezuelan Spanish from the areas of El Tirano (Margarita Island) and San Rafael de Mucuchíes (Mérida state). The materials were 44 CV syllable prompts. Target syllables were analyzed with respect to the following: consonant closure duration, VOT, %VF, RMS, preceding vowel duration, CV ratio, F1 onset frequency, F0 contour, and burst. Statistical analysis using a linear mixed model ANOVA tested for fixed effects of voicing category, dialect and condition (speeded/unspeeded) and interactions of voicing category * dialect and dialect * condition. Results showed that the dialects MER and MAR vary significantly in RMS. In addition, the following correlates were significant for the interaction of voicing category * dialect: consonant duration, VOT, %VF, RMS, CV ratio and burst. Generally, the nature of the differences indicates a greater separation between [± voice] values in MER than in MAR (notably divergent are VOT and RMS). These results imply that while the same acoustic correlates of [voice] are operative in both fortis and lenis dialects of Spanish, [± voice] categories relate differently. Furthermore, with regard to prosody and rate of speech, most significant differences in condition occurred in initial position while most significant differences in the interaction of voicing category * dialect were linked to medial position. The results of this study are relevant to current research on the specifics of dialectal variation in consonant systems. They also have wider implications for the general mapping of phonetics to phonology in speech. / text

El presente trabajo busca cuantificar la importancia socioeconómica de siete rasgos fonéticos (seseo, yeísmo, aspiración de /s/, aspiración de /x/, asibilación de /ʝ/, asibilación de /r/ y velarización de /n/), cuya presencia o ausencia sirve para caracterizar veinticuatro dialectos del idioma español. Para ello se efectúa un análisis de regresión por mínimos cuadrados que sirve para calcular “precios hedónicos” asociados con tales rasgos fonéticos. El resultado es +que las tres características más significativas que parecen operar como signos de un ingreso per cápita más bajo son el seseo, la aspiración de /x/ y la asibilación de /r/. El primero de tales rasgos parece ser también significativo como marcador sociolingüístico cuando limitamos nuestro análisis al caso de España, en tanto que la asibilación de /r/ mantiene su significación cuando restringimos nuestras observaciones al caso de Colombia. / This paper tries to quantify the socioeconomic importance of seven phonetic characteristics (seseo, yeismo, /s/-aspiration, /x/-aspiration, /ʝ/-assibilation, /r/-assibilation, and /n/-velarization) whose presence or absence allows distinguishing among twenty-four Spanish dialects. In order to accomplish this goal, we perform a least-square regression analysis to calculate “hedonic prices” for the abovementioned characteristics. The result is that the three more significant characteristics, which seem to operate as signs of a lower per-capita income, are seseo, /x/-aspiration and /r/-assibilation. The first of those characteristics keeps its statistical significance as a sociolinguistic marker when we restrict our analysis to the case of Spain, while /r/-assibilation keeps its statistical significance when we restrict our database to Colombian observations.