Gestural Timing Patterns of Nasality in Highly Proficient Spanish Learners of English: Aerodynamic Evidence

Abstract

Segment-to-segment timing overlap between Vowel-Nasal gestures in /VN/ sequences varies cross-linguistically. However, how bilinguals may adjust those timing gestures is still unanswered. Regarding timing strategies in a second language (L2), research finds that native (L1) strategies can be partially transferred to the L2, and that higher L2 proficiency promotes a more successful phonetic performance. My goal is to answer whether bilingual speakers can adjust their L1 coarticulatory settings in their L2 and to observe whether their L2 accentedness plays a role in ultimate attainment. Ten native speakers of Spanish (L1Sp) who were highly proficient L2 English speakers participated in Spanish and English read-aloud tasks. A control group of 16 L1 English speakers undertook the English experiment. Aerodynamic data were collected using pressure transducers. Each participant produced tokens with nasalized vowels in CVN# words and oral vowels in CV(CV) words. Four linguistically trained judges (two per target language) evaluated a set of pseudo-randomized sentences produced by the participants containing words with nasalized vowels and rated the speech on a 1 (heavily accented) to 9 (native-like) Likert-type scale. Measurements for onset and degree of overall nasality were obtained. Results indicate the L1Sp group can accommodate gestural timing strategies cross-linguistically as they exhibit an earlier nasality onset and increment nasality proportion in L2 English in a native-like manner. In addition, a positive correlation between greater vowel nasality degree and native-like accentedness in the L2 was found, suggesting L2 timing settings might be specified in higher spoken proficiency levels.

The Role of (Re)Syllabification on Coarticulatory Nasalization: Aerodynamic Evidence from Spanish

“…The outcome in both conditions is gestural overlap with partial phonetic nasalization of the vowel. Cross-linguistic differences have been found with regard to the degree of gestural overlap across carryover and anticipatory, and within each type of process (see Beristain 2023aBeristain , 2023bClumeck 1976;Goodin-Mayeda 2016;Martínez 2021).…”

“…Participants wore an AKG C-520 head-mounted microphone (Harman International, Stamford, CT, USA) that was located approximately 3 cm (1 inch) away from their mouths. For a more detailed report about the equipment, see Beristain (2022Beristain ( , 2023a.…”

“…The author of the current study calibrated the equipment manually before every session by utilizing an AFTA6A Calibration syringe of 600 mL (Beristain 2023a(Beristain , 2023b and annotating the correction value of the signal for every word uttered and the surface area of the air volume expelled by the syringe. Those numbers were inserted in a calibration formula that was applied to the raw data of each participant.…”

“…Those numbers were inserted in a calibration formula that was applied to the raw data of each participant. The conversion equation used is presented in (1) (Beristain 2023a(Beristain , 2023bShosted 2009), as follows:…”

“…Remarkably, the effect of (re)syllabification of nasal consonants on neighboring vowels in Spanish has not been thoroughly investigated, especially via articulatory methods. The present study seeks to understand the aerodynamics (Beristain 2022(Beristain , 2023a(Beristain , 2023bCohn 1993;Huffman and Krakow 1993;Shosted 2009;Shosted et al 2012;Solé 1992;Stoakes et al 2020) of the spread of anticipatory and carryover coarticulatory nasalization across various syllabic contexts within word boundaries and across word junctures. The study determines that tautosyllabic segments show greater articulatory overlap and that carryover nasalization is unaffected by resyllabification, which provides evidence for complete resyllabification.…”