The Effects of Language Experience and Speech Context on the Phonetic Accommodation of English-accented Spanish Voicing. (March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Llanos, Fernando; Francis, Alexander L
• Is Part Of: Language and speech. Volume 60:Number 1(2017:Mar.)
• Page Start: 3
• Page End: 26
• Publication Date: 2017-03
• Subjects: Foreign-accented speech -- stop-consonant voicing -- voice onset time -- Spanish -- English -- bilingualism -- phonetic calibration -- phonetic relaxation -- phonetic switching; Language and languages -- Periodicals; Speech -- Periodicals; Language disorders -- Periodicals; Speech disorders -- Periodicals; 401.9
• DOI: 10.1177/0023830915623579
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0023-8309

Abstract

Native speakers of Spanish with different amounts of experience with English classified stop-consonant voicing (/b/ versus /p/) across different speech accents: English-accented Spanish, native Spanish, and native English. While listeners with little experience with English classified target voicing with an English- or Spanish-like voice onset time (VOT) boundary, predicted by contextual VOT, listeners familiar with English relied on an English-like VOT boundary in an English-accented Spanish context even in the absence of clear contextual cues to English VOT. This indicates that Spanish listeners accommodated English-accented Spanish voicing differently depending on their degree of familiarization with the English norm.