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EN
This paper focuses on the effect of prominence level and stress distribution on timing in read English speech of Polish learners. We have measured and analysed the length of IP units distinguished by the traditional British School prosodic description, i.e. preheads, heads and nuclei, as well as stress feet, further divided into stressed and unstressed syllables. A comparison of native and Polish learners' performance shows similar durations of stressed and pitch accented syllables. The unstressed syllables and syllable clusters, on the other hand, are significantly longer in non-native speech, and the discrepancies increase at lower phrasal prominence levels, especially in the preheads. Similar results for both groups have been obtained with respect to the number of consecutive unstressed syllables (foot complexity). The same test repeated after seven months of pronunciation training reveals a considerable tendency towards native speech timing, although the differences concerning low prominence levels remain significant.
Research in Language
|
2012
|
vol. 10
|
issue 2
201-214
EN
This paper presents a set of simple statistical measures that illustrate the difference between native English speakers and Polish learners of English in varying the length of vocalic segments in read speech. Relative vowel duration and vowel length variation are widely used as basic criteria for establishing rhythmic differences between languages and dialects of a language. The parameter of vocalic duration is employed in popular measures such as ΔV (Ramus et al. 1999), VarcoV (Dellwo 2006, White and Mattys 2007), and PVI (Low et al. 2000, Grabe and Low 2002). Apart from rhythm studies, the processing of data concerning vowel duration can be used to establish the level of discrepancy between native speech and learner speech in investigating other temporal aspects of FL pronunciation, such as tense-lax vowel distinction, accentual lengthening or the degree of unstressed vowel reduction, which are often pointed out as serious problems in the acquisition of English pronunciation by Polish learners. Using descriptive statistics (relations between personal mean vowel duration and standard deviation), the author calculates several indices that demonstrate individual learners' (13 subjects) scores in relation to the native speakers' (12 subjects) score ranges. In some tested aspects, the results of the two groups of speakers are almost cleanly separated, which suggests not only the existence of specific didactic problems but also their actual scale.
EN
This paper focuses on the effect of prominence level and stress distribution on timing in read English speech of Polish learners. We have measured and analysed the length of IP units distinguished by the traditional British School prosodic description, i.e. preheads, heads and nuclei, as well as stress feet, further divided into stressed and unstressed syllables.A comparison of native and Polish learners' performance shows similar durations of stressed and pitch accented syllables. The unstressed syllables and syllable clusters, on the other hand, are significantly longer in non-native speech, and the discrepancies increase at lower phrasal prominence levels, especially in the preheads. Similar results for both groups have been obtained with respect to the number of consecutive unstressed syllables (foot complexity). The same test repeated after seven months of pronunciation training reveals a considerable tendency towards native speech timing, although the differences concerning low prominence levels remain significant.
Research in Language
|
2012
|
vol. 10
|
issue 2
201-214
EN
This paper presents a set of simple statistical measures that illustrate the difference between native English speakers and Polish learners of English in varying the length of vocalic segments in read speech. Relative vowel duration and vowel length variation are widely used as basic criteria for establishing rhythmic differences between languages and dialects of a language. The parameter of vocalic duration is employed in popular measures such as ΔV (Ramus et al. 1999), VarcoV (Dellwo 2006, White and Mattys 2007), and PVI (Low et al. 2000, Grabe and Low 2002). Apart from rhythm studies, the processing of data concerning vowel duration can be used to establish the level of discrepancy between native speech and learner speech in investigating other temporal aspects of FL pronunciation, such as tense-lax vowel distinction, accentual lengthening or the degree of unstressed vowel reduction, which are often pointed out as serious problems in the acquisition of English pronunciation by Polish learners. Using descriptive statistics (relations between personal mean vowel duration and standard deviation), the author calculates several indices that demonstrate individual learners' (13 subjects) scores in relation to the native speakers' (12 subjects) score ranges. In some tested aspects, the results of the two groups of speakers are almost cleanly separated, which suggests not only the existence of specific didactic problems but also their actual scale.
DE
Die Studie befasst sich mit der Erkennung eines fremden Akzents in der englischen vokodierten und rückwärts gerichteten Sprache. Beide Verarbeitungsverfahren eliminieren eine semantische Information und teilweise (rückwärts gerichtete Sprache) oder vollständig (vokodierte Sprache) eine Spektralinformation, während die rhythmischen Merkmale der Sprache beibehalten werden, die als Differenzierungsgrad der Dauer von prosodischen Einheiten verstanden werden, die zur Unterscheidung von Proben des einheimischen und fremden Akzents dienen könnten. An der Untersuchung nahmen englische Muttersprachler und Polen teil, die diese Sprache auf fortgeschrittenem Niveau gebrauchen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass weder Engländer noch Polen in der Lage sind, einen fremden Akzent in den verarbeiteten Sprachproben nur aufgrund der zeitlichen Verteilung der Akzente (vokodierte Sprache) und des Differenzierungsgrades der Länge von prosodischen Einheiten (rückwärts gerichtete Sprache) zu erkennen.
EN
This paper addresses the issue of speech rhythm as a cue to non-native pronunciation. In natural recordings, it is impossible to disentangle rhythm from segmental, subphonemic or suprasegmental features that may influence nativeness ratings. However, two methods of speech manipulation, that is, backwards content-masked speech and vocoded speech, allow the identification of native and non-native speech in which segmental properties are masked and become inaccessible to the listeners. In the current study, we use these two methods to compare the perception of content-masked native English speech and Polish-accented speech. Both native English and Polish-accented recordings were manipulated using backwards masked speech and 4-band white-noise vocoded speech. Fourteen listeners classified the stimuli as produced by native or Polish speakers of English. Polish and English differ in their temporal organization, so, if rhythm is a significant contributor to the status of non-native accentedness, we expected an above-chance rate of recognition of native and non-native English speech. Moreover, backwards content-masked speech was predicted to yield better results than vocoded speech, because it retains some of the indexical properties of speakers. The resultsshow that listeners are unable to detect non-native accent in Polish learners of English from backwards and vocoded speech samples.
EN
This paper analyses the way that Polish learners of English articulate plosive and affricate consonants preceding another obstruent occlusive in both L1 and L2. Considering that English allows unreleased plosives before any stop, that is in a wider range of contexts than Polish, a Polish learner may find it confusing that it is regarded unacceptable to block the affricate release before another (in English always homorganic) affricate. In Polish the first of two homorganic affricates is often reduced to the occlusion phase, while unreleased plosives appear very rarely in non-homorganic contexts. This apparent paradox in the treatment of affricate and plosive consonant clusters may lead to complicated transfer patterns, which we examine by observing the release suppression tendencies in Polish and English phrases and sentences read by phonetically trained and untrained Polish learners of English. The results indicate strong negative transfer tendencies and suggest a connection between gemination patterns and unreleased occlusive distribution in a language.
EN
Polish is a language where true geminates appear and the occurrence of a double consonant letter in spelling corresponds with double or at least prolonged consonant articulation regardless of the morphological structure of the word. The above principle also concerns most borrowings, such as the English word ‘hobby’, for instance. In English, true geminates do not occur and a morpheme-internal double consonant letter is only a fairly reliable indication of the way the preceding vowel should be pronounced. This discrepancy may lead to negative transfer in Polish learners of English. Our recent research of native Polish speech (Rojczyk and Porzuczek, in press) generally confirmed the results reported by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), among others, who found geminates to be 1.5-3 times longer than singletons. In our study we investigate the influence of double consonant letters on L1 and English pronunciation of Polish learners. They read trochaic family names containing intervocalic . Each name is preceded by a first name suggesting the nationality (Polish, English, German or Italian) of the person mentioned. By placing each tested item in a Polish and an English semantically and rhythmically equivalent sentences (This is .../To jest...), we measure the level of consonant length variation with respect to the language in which the potential geminates appear, the language context and the learning experience of the students. In this way we collect evidence and formulate observations concerning the learners’ awareness of the status of geminates in various languages and the probability of transfer in EFL learning.
EN
Polish is a language where true geminates appear and the occurrence of a double consonant letter in spelling corresponds with double or at least prolonged consonant articulation regardless of the morphological structure of the word. The above principle also concerns most borrowings, such as the English word ‘hobby’, for instance. In English, true geminates do not occur and a morpheme-internal double consonant letter is only a fairly reliable indication of the way the preceding vowel should be pronounced. This discrepancy may lead to negative transfer in Polish learners of English. Our recent research of native Polish speech (Rojczyk and Porzuczek, in press) generally confirmed the results reported by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), among others, who found geminates to be 1.5-3 times longer than singletons. In our study we investigate the influence of double consonant letters on L1 and English pronunciation of Polish learners. They read trochaic family names containing intervocalic . Each name is preceded by a first name suggesting the nationality (Polish, English, German or Italian) of the person mentioned. By placing each tested item in a Polish and an English semantically and rhythmically equivalent sentences (This is .../To jest...), we measure the level of consonant length variation with respect to the language in which the potential geminates appear, the language context and the learning experience of the students. In this way we collect evidence and formulate observations concerning the learners’ awareness of the status of geminates in various languages and the probability of transfer in EFL learning.
EN
This paper focuses on the relations between conscious and subconscious aspects of English word stress acquisition. Using two tasks – reading and written word stress identification, we test metacompetence and production accuracy in the pronunciation of Polish learners, first year and third year English studies majors. The analysis of the collected data and correlations between the students’ metalinguistic knowledge and production accuracy, including error patterns and proportions, leads to conclusions concerning the significance of language awareness, learning experience and, indirectly, explicit didactic instruction for English word stress realization. Our results indicate that Polish learners tend to stress the word-initial syllable rather than the penult, typical of their native language. We have also observed a generally large, though smaller in more proficient learners, discrepancy between metacompetence and performance.
EN
The paper investigates immediate and distracted imitation in second-language speech using unreleased plosives. Unreleased plosives are fairly frequently found in English sequences of two stops. Polish, on the other hand, is characterised by a significant rate of releases in such sequences. This cross-linguistic difference served as material to look into how and to what extent non-native properties of sounds can be produced in immediate and distracted imitation. Thirteen native speakers of Polish first read and then imitated sequences of words with two stops straddling the word boundary. Stimuli for imitation had no release of the first stop. The results revealed that (1) a non-native feature such as the lack of the release burst can be imitated; (2) distracting imitation impedes imitative performance; (3) the type of a sequence interacts with the magnitude of an imitative effect
EN
The paper investigates immediate and distracted imitation in second-language speech using unreleased plosives. Unreleased plosives are fairly frequently found in English sequences of two stops. Polish, on the other hand, is characterised by a significant rate of releases in such sequences. This cross-linguistic difference served as material to look into how and to what extent non-native properties of sounds can be produced in immediate and distracted imitation. Thirteen native speakers of Polish first read and then imitated sequences of words with two stops straddling the word boundary. Stimuli for imitation had no release of the first stop. The results revealed that (1) a non-native feature such as the lack of the release burst can be imitated; (2) distracting imitation impedes imitative performance; (3) the type of a sequence interacts with the magnitude of an imitative effect
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