The acquisition of English speech rhythm in instructed learners

ESPINOSA GONZALO E.

General Roca

Congreso; V Congreso Nacional: El conocimiento como espacio de encuentro; 2018

Universidad Nacional del Comahue

Speech rhythm has been conceived of as the result of various phonetic and phonological properties (Bertinetto, 1989; Dasher & Bolinger, 1982; Dauer, 1983, 1987). Spanish is traditionally considered a language with a syllable-timed rhythm that has a simple syllable structure, lexical stress has a minor role, and there are no processes of vowel reduction. English, on the other hand, has been classified as a stress-timed language that has a complex syllable structure, lexical stress has a major role, and vowel reduction is a recurrent phenomenon. In order to account for speech rhythm acoustically, rhythm metrics have been developed (Ramus, Nespor, & Mehler, 1999; White & Mattys, 2007). In this work, rhythm metrics are implemented in order to give an account of the acquisition of English rhythm in instructed learners. Three levels of language proficiency and two ages of onset of acquisition are considered when analyzing speech in two elicitation tasks.