Nasal vowels and word stress production by adult L1 Ukrainian speakers of European Portuguese as an L2

Research output: Contribution to conferencePosterpeer-review

Abstract

Nasal vowels and primary word stress production in European Portuguese have received little attention in SLA. Following the SLM-r model, the creation of a new L2 category “is possible regardless of the age” and depending on the proximity to “the closest L1 sound” (Flege & Bohn, 2021, p.64). Hence, the more similar the sounds of the L1 and L2 are, the more difficult it will be to perceive and, consequently, to produce them (Flege & Bohn, 2021). In light of this, it is crucial to comprehend if nasal vowels and primary word stress pose difficulties for L2 production and to what degree they can influence L2 accent, specifically targeting L1 Ukrainian.
The present study analyzes the production of five nasal vowels (high /ĩ/; /ũ/ and mid /ẽ/, /ɐ̃/, /õ/) and primary word stress by intermediate (B1/B2) and advanced (C1/C2) L1 Ukrainian speakers (UKR) of L2 European Portuguese (EP). The choice fell on these properties because nasal vowels are inexistent in UKR; word stress is free, unlike in EP, where it can affect only one of the last three syllables and often leads to vowel reduction (Andrade, 2020; Pompino-Marschall et al., 2017). Even though there are no nasal vowels in
UKR, some oral vowels are similar to the EP oral vowels, for example, /a/, /i/, /u/, /ɛ/, and /ɔ/. We hypothesize that nasality will be reduced or prone to substitution strategies and primary word stress will be misplaced in B1/B2; C1/C2 will have an improved production of these features. This study was preregistered on OSF: https://osf.io/zmk5c.
The study consists of two speech production tasks. The first is an audio-visual repetition task adapted from Oh et al. (2011), where participants repeat a word three times: the first time by listening to the auditory cue and seeing a picture; the second and third times — without listening (30 words in total: disyllabic for nasal vowels and trisyllabic for primary word stress). In the second task, the participants are asked to produce words with nasal vowels inside an extemporaneous narrative based on a picture with keywords (Saito, Trofimovich, & Isaacs, 2015; dependent variables: F1/F2 [Hz] mean, duration [ms]; A1-P0 [dB]).
The results (45 participants: 15 UKR on B1/B2; 15 UKR on C1/C2; 15 EP) indicate that nasality was produced, but often not as a target vowel (ex., /ɐ̃/ was produced as a low central vowel [ã] instead of a mid-central vowel, e.g., [ˈbã.ku]), predominantly in B1/B2. In some participants, the nasality was also reduced, or the production of a preceding consonant /n/ or /m/ was heard. Besides, some problems with vowel reduction in unstressed syllables were detected. Table 1 provides an overview of mean acoustic values in isolated productions for F1, F2, duration, and A1-P0. In the later stages, these productions will be rated by L1 EP speakers.
This research will contribute to phonetics and SLA by providing empirical data on acoustic cues that may affect accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in an understudied language pair.
Original languageEnglish
Pages1
Number of pages1
Publication statusPublished - 2024
EventEncontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística - Universidade dos Açores, Ponta Delgada
Duration: 23 Oct 202425 Oct 2024
Conference number: 40

Conference

ConferenceEncontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística
CityPonta Delgada
Period23/10/2425/10/24

Keywords

  • Acoustic analysis
  • Nasality
  • Word stress
  • Ukrainian
  • L2 European Portuguese

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