Lingua_Francasage,_Exposure_to_English_and_the_Pronunciation_of__T__and__D__by_Spanish_Speakers_in_Second_Language_Acquisition

Age, Exposure to English and the Pronunciation of /t/ and /d/ by Spanish Speakers in Second Language Acquisition Mauricio Carrillo October 6, 2010 INTRODUCTION: Phonology is without a doubt the aspect of second language learning that most visibly reveals the influence of the speaker’s native language (Fromkin et al, 2006). Phonological attainment may be tied to different factors including psycho-motor constraints, e.g. as articulatory habits from L1 become entrenched. According to Moyer (2004), phonology is the most prominent factor in determining comprehensibility, native-nes, fluency, and belonging which are significantly tied to contact with native speakers, motivation, duration of formal instruction, and length of residence, in addition to age of exposure. The acquisition of L2 English consonants and consonant clusters has been a major area of study in L2 phonology as English has a relatively complex phonological system, with a wide range of consonants that could fit syllable-initial (onset) and syllable-final (coda) position, as well as allowing other consonants to combine in the onset or coda to form clusters, clusters of up to three or four consonants, while other languages, such as Spanish, have relatively simpler types of consonants in onsets and codas. Learning the English phonology has posed a real challenge for some native Spanish speakers. Although the following phonemes /p/, /b/, /f/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /s/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /r/, /j/, /w/, and /dʒ/ have near equivalents in both Spanish and English and are articulated without serious problem, there are still some complications (Swan and Smith, 1991); for example, in Spanish, the initial voiceless plosive /t/ is not aspirated as in English, so it often sounds like /d/ to native English listeners, e.g., the word “ten” might sound like “den”. The same phenomenon occurs with the word-final voiced plosive /d/; some native Spanish speakers tend to use /t/ for final /d/, so the question; “Did you make the bed'” might sound like, “Did you make the bet'” These pronunciation errors may be the result of L1 interference since the native Spanish speaker may transfer these aspects from L1. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: The purpose of this research project is to attain whether time spent living in an English speaking country reduces the pronunciation errors of the sounds “t” and “d” made by Spanish speakers in English. These phonemes were the focus of this study because this is an area of difficulty for many native Spanish speakers that have lived and studied in Canada and/or the United States. BACKGROUND: Nine speakers of Spanish from Chile and Colombia, who met the criteria of being between the ages of 19 and 55 and that have lived in an English speaking country for at least one year and a maximum of twelve years, were chosen to participate in this case study. The participants were asked to take part in a short interview which was recorded for further analysis of the phonemes /t/ and /d/ in both the initial (onset) and final (coda) word positions. PROCEDURE: The task was spontaneous speech, elicited by asking several questions of personal nature. Each participant was asked how old they were, when they had arrived in Canada or the Unites States, how old they were when they started studying English, and what they would do if they won one million dollars. In addition, they were asked to talk about an important event in their lives. This task was intended to represent casual and informal speech. Each subject spoke for at least five minutes. Refer to tables 1 and 2 for detail data of this study. DATA: Table 1 Age factor and length of residence in SLA participants Age of arrival Length of residence in years Age exposed to EFL/ESL /t/ Onset /t/ Coda /d/ Coda 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 43 29 19 31 26 34 35 22 20 4 9 8 9 2 3 12 4.5 2 12 18 19 32 26 34 36 22 20 AA S S S N S S N N A A A A A A A A A AA S S S N N N N N Table 2 A total of 36 words containing the phonemes /t/ and /d/. /t/ Onset Try Two Take Time Tell TV Twelve Ten Twice Took Talking /t/ Coda About But Get Relate Pilot Got Donate /d/ Coda Need Would Would Good Key to Table 1 A Always produced the target sound AA Almost always produced the target sound S Sometimes produced the target sound N Never produced the target sound ANALYSIS: Table 1 shows that of nine participants, the one who had been exposed to formal instruction at the age of 12 almost always correctly produced the phonemes /t/ and /d/ in the syllable onset and syllable coda. Five of the participants who had the longest time of residence in the target language environment sometimes produced the initial plosive /t/. Three subjects who had the least amount of time were never able to correctly produce /t/ in syllable onset or syllable coda. Five participants were not able to correctly pronounce the word-final voiced plosive /d/ while the other four were not able to pronounce it correctly all of the time. All nine participants correctly produced the word-final voiceless plosive /t/. The results indicate a strong effect for age of exposure to English in the form of formal instruction (EFL), but not for the length of residence (LOR) in an English speaking country. All nine participants were exposed to English on a regular basis as adults when they either arrived in the United States or Canada. The mean age of arrival (AOA) was 28.8 years, which has surpassed the critical period (CP) which states that there is a limited developmental period during which it is possible to acquire a language, be it L1 or L2, to normal, native-like levels. Once this window of opportunity is passed, the ability to learn language declines (Birdsong, 1999). Scovel (as cited in Birdsong, 1999, p. 133) singled out pronunciation as the one area of language that has a neuromuscular basis. He predicted that learners who start to learn an L2 later than around age 12 will end up identified as nonnative speakers. Moyer (1999) made special note of the intractability of foreign accent after the age of 9 or 10, and is largely upheld by subsequent evidence, even among advanced learners. Consistent with critical period hypothesis (CPH) are the phonological deficits of the nine participants in this study. However, AOA, LOR and CPH should not be isolated from other factors that might help explain the interference of production of the phonemes /t/ and /d/ by the participants of this study. Moyer(1999) states that the influence of L1 may hinder the complete acquisition of phonological, morphological, syntactic, or semantic features in L2. Transfer appears to contribute to the faulty or incomplete acquisition of any number of linguistic features. It would be consequential to think that transfer might be a reason for the faulty production of the phonemes /t/ and /d/ by the nine participants, since Spanish is less marked in terms of voicing contrasts. English has the /t/ and /d/ phonemes in all three possible word positions, while Spanish has these phonemes in initial and middle word positions, but very few words end in these sounds and the initial voiceless plosive /t/ is never aspirated in Spanish. CONCLUSION: Although there is some evidence that LOR might be a factor in the acquisition of the English phonology in that five of the participants sometimes correctly pronounced the syllable onset /t/, this is still not enough evidence to produce a positive conclusion that LOR is responsible for this, since the data collected is insufficient and there might be other factors that influenced this result, such as attitude towards the target language, motivation, behavior, input from native speakers and certain consequences of age. If CPH, markedness, and interference were true in all cases, why did six participants sometimes correctly produce an aspirated /t/ in the onset position and other times fail to' Why did only four subjects correctly produce the final voiced plosive /d/' Perhaps each participant is at a different level of interlanguage (Fromkin et al, 2006), which could explain this phenomenon. So far, this study has looked at the overall pronunciation of the phonemes /t/ and /d/. Of course, students who learn an L2 often produce particular L2 vowels and consonants inaccurately, which lead to foreign accents (Birdsong, 1999). If these phonemes are never mastered by native Spanish-speaking adults, it would suggest the existence of age constraints on articulatory motor learning (Moyer, 1999). It would be prudent to state that it is difficult to pinpoint the source of nonnative production of the /t/ and /d/. However, the question arises as to whether difficult sounds for students to produce were to be taught at an early stage of SLA, would they be producing native-like sounds in the developmental stages' This would be a topic for further research. Age of arrival, like length of residence, might give researchers little indication of the fundamental mechanisms responsible for attainment; instead, depending on the individual case, it may be an indication of cumulative experiences, such as constraints on the language learning process. Learners starting SLA at a certain age after puberty may be subject to complex combination of constraints in social, psychological and cognitive domains.