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    Perception and Production of Intonation among English-Spanish Bilingual Speakers at Different Proficiency Levels

    Cover for Perception and Production of Intonation among English-Spanish Bilingual Speakers at Different Proficiency Levels
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    View/Open: ZxE1rateSxE1ndez_georgetown_0076D_13050.pdf (2.9MB) Bookview

    Creator
    Zárate-Sández, Germán
    Advisor
    Morales-Front, Alfonso
    Sanz, Cristina
    Abstract
    This dissertation examined the perception and production of intonation among 55 English-native speakers of Spanish at three proficiency levels (low, high, and very high). Their performance was compared with monolingual speakers of Spanish (n=17) and English (n=17), and English-Spanish early bilinguals (heritage speakers, n=16). The target form was the intonational contour in neutral declarative utterances in Spanish, examined at two tonal events, namely prenuclear peak alignment and final boundary tone height. The study adhered to the theoretical principles of the Autosegmental-Metrical approach (Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986; Pierrehumbert, 1980, 2000). Participants completed an imitation task aimed at locating potential categorical shifts in the perception of both tonal events and two production tasks varying in speaking style (sentence reading and storytelling). Results revealed a marked contrast between Spanish and English in perception and production of both tonal events. Spanish speakers generally preferred later alignment of prenuclear peaks and lower height of final boundary tone. In turn, second language (L2) and early bilingual speakers tended to produce values in the middle range between Spanish and English. Performance of low-proficiency speakers generally approximated English monolingual speakers, while L2 speakers of very high proficiency produced values at the same level of heritage speakers under most measures. As regards the role of speaking style in production, some minor effects were found in prenuclear alignment, while no effects were obtained in final boundary tone. A strong relationship between production and perception was also found for prenuclear alignment but not for final boundary tone. Results also seemed to support some predictions made by the Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995). Findings are discussed from the point of view of cross-linguistic influence, effects of high proficiency on L2 phonology, tonal representations for Spanish and English, and the link between production and perception in L2 prosody.
    Description
    Ph.D.
    Permanent Link
    http://hdl.handle.net/10822/761510
    Date Published
    2015
    Subject
    English; intonation; phonology; Spanish; speech perception; speech production; Linguistics; Language and culture; Linguistics; Language;
    Type
    thesis
    Publisher
    Georgetown University
    Extent
    221 leaves
    Collections
    • Graduate Theses and Dissertations - Spanish and Portuguese
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    Georgetown University Seal
    ©2009 - 2023 Georgetown University Library
    37th & O Streets NW
    Washington DC 20057-1174
    202.687.7385
    digitalscholarship@georgetown.edu
    Accessibility