María Del Saz

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Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Michał B. Paradowski

University of Warsaw

Bert Vaux

University of Cambridge

Claire Bowern

Yale University

Albert Bastardas-Boada

Universitat de Barcelona

Mark W. Post

The University of Sydney

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Eitan Grossman

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Probal Dasgupta

Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta

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Biola University

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Papers by María Del Saz

Production of Vowels and Nuclear Accents by Chilean Learners of English as a Foreign Language

RLA. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada

Foro virtual en el aula de lengua extranjera

EDUcación y TECnología: Propuestas desde la investigación y la innovación educativa, 2017, ISBN 978-956-393-378-9, págs. 522-525, 2017

Este estudio explora las diferencias de comportamiento entre estudiantes de inglés como lengua ex... more Este estudio explora las diferencias de comportamiento entre estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera, en un debate cara a cara y un debate virtual, en cuanto al uso del idioma extranjero y la interacción entre participantes se refiere. Ambos contextos, presencial y virtual, difieren en sincronía y modo de comunicación: el presencial es síncrono y hablado; el virtual es asíncrono y escrito. Sin embargo, los resultados indican que el contexto virtual ofrece ventajas tales como una mayor participación por parte de los estudiantes y una menor inhibición a la hora de explorar con el idioma. En contraposición, se pierden los turnos de palabra y se encuentra una mayor divagación del tema central a tratar. Parece que la presencia de un moderador, en este caso el profesor, influye en este comportamiento. De todas formas, se entiende como algo positivo la incorporación de esta modalidad de comunicación dentro del aula de lenguas extranjeras, dadas las respuestas obtenidas por parte de los estudiantes al ser cuestionados al respecto.

Native and Nonnative Perception of Western Andalusian Spanish /S/ Aspiration in Quiet and Noise

Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2019

Many college students set out on Study Abroad Programs to other countries in which the variant of... more Many college students set out on Study Abroad Programs to other countries in which the variant of the foreign language spoken in the region differs from the variant to which learners have been exposed. This study explores the perception of L2 Western Andalusian Spanish aspiration of word-final /s/ by L1 American English listeners, in relation to their length of exposure to the L2 in quiet conditions and to their competence level in the L2 in noisy conditions. Results indicate that perception drops in adverse conditions, particularly for listeners in their intermediate stages of learning. Proficient listeners’ perception also suffers with respect to native listeners’ performance at lower signal-to-noise ratios. For all listeners, native and nonnative, standard features are best identified, whether in quiet or noise.

El reconocimiento del habla ante la variedad de una lengua: la africada dento-alveolar andaluza

Onomázein, 2016

espanolLa calidad del reconocimiento de voz dentro de las tecnologias del habla depende del tipo ... more espanolLa calidad del reconocimiento de voz dentro de las tecnologias del habla depende del tipo de sistema utilizado y de la aplicacion para la que se destine. Uno de los problemas que puede presentar es el grado de robustez ante variedades dialectales de una lengua. En este estudio se analiza la tasa de reconocimiento de la aspiracion andaluza ante oclusiva dentoalveolar sorda usando Google Voice Search y Windows 7 sin entrenamiento, por una parte, y usando Windows 7 con diferente numero de sesiones de entrenamiento con un locutor, por otra. Inicialmente, Google Voice Search tiene mayor robustez ante Windows 7, hecho que Windows 7 compensa a medida que aumentan las sesiones de entrenamiento. En general, se observa que la robustez del reconocimiento se ve afectado por factores como el numero de candidatos lexicos posibles y el contexto de las entradas. EnglishThe quality of voice recognition within the field of speech technologies depends on the type of system used and the application to which it is destined. One of the problems that it can present is its degree of robustness with dialectal variants of a language. In this study, an analysis is done of the recognition rate of Andalusian aspiration before the voiceless dentoalveolar plosive by using Google Voice Search and untrained Windows 7, on the one hand, and Windows 7 after a number of training sessions with a speaker, on the other hand. Initially, Google Voice Search has greater robustness than Windows 7, which Windows 7 compensates as the number of training sessions increase. In general, it can be observed that recognition robustness is affected by factors such as the number of possible lexical candidates and the context of the entries

Effects of place of articulation on L2 Spanish coda /s/ perception

In L2 speech perception tasks, it is known that the context in which the target stimuli is presen... more In L2 speech perception tasks, it is known that the context in which the target stimuli is presented can affect the performance of the listeners. Differences in temporal and spectral parameters found in place and manner of articulation or voice contrasts can affect their acoustic characteristics (Strange &amp; Shafer, 2008). In this respect, this study analyzes the identification of L2 Spanish coda /s/ in plural nouns and second-person verbs in the present tense, from stimuli recorded by Western Andalusian Spanish and Castilian Spanish speakers. One of the main differences between these two variants of Spanish is that the former aspirates syllable- and word-final /s/, while the latter maintains sibilance. Previously, Del Saz (2014) reported the identification of Western Andalusian Spanish aspiration before the three voiceless stops by L2 Spanish learners. In this case, aspiration is transferred to the following sounds, turning unaspirated voiceless stops [p, t, k] into aspirated ones [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] (Torreira, 2007). The author found that 84 American English listeners identified target words when followed by the dental voiceless stop significantly better than before the velar and the bilabial stops. After an acoustic analysis, it was concluded that the length of the preceding vowel was a key factor to identification; the dental voiceless stop presented the longest duration and, therefore, the longest pre-aspiration. In this current study, the author reports findings for the same L2 listeners according to not only their identification of sibilance before the voiceless stops, but also of aspiration and sibilance before the three voiced stops. In this case, Spanish voiced stops in connected speech become approximants [ß̞, ð̞, ɣ̞] (Quilis, 1993), while they are fricatized after aspiration [v/f, ð/θ, x/h] (Alvar, 1996). As with her previous study, stimuli consisted of nouns and verbs ending in the morphological marker –s (second-person verbs and plural nouns) or in vowel (third-person verbs and singular nouns), followed by different phonetic contexts and embedded in sentences. These sentences were presented randomly in an identification task with two forced-choice alternatives. As aspiration of /s/ is not a phonotactic possibility in English and listeners were unfamiliar with this L2 variant, it is not surprising that they identified this variant with less than 15% of accuracy, while they identified sibilance with more than 90% of accuracy. Nevertheless, in both cases, phonetic context played a role in identification, particularly as far as the (inter)dental context is concerned. Results indicate that, contrary to the previous study, listeners identified sibilance before the dental voiceless stop significantly less accurately than before the velar and the bilabial stops [χ²(2) = 178.043; p &lt; .001]. Likewise, they also identified sibilance before the dental approximant less accurately than before the bilabial and the velar ones [χ²(2) = 185.136, p &lt; .001]. Conversely, aspiration was significantly best identified before the interdental fricatized approximant [χ²(2) = 272.145, p &lt; .001]. Therefore, it seems that the (inter)dental context favors the identification of aspiration but shows the opposite tendency for the identification of sibilance. These findings are not only interesting for L2 research but also support ongoing language variation (Ruch &amp; Harrington, 2014) and the idea of the listener as a source of sound change (Ohala, 1993). Keywords: L2 speech perception, language variation, phonetic context, /s/-aspiration Linguistic field: Phonetics/Phonology, Language Acquisition References Alvar, Manuel. 1996. Manual de Dialectología Hispánica. El Español de España. Barcelona: Ariel. Del Saz, Maria. “The Perception of Western Andalusian Spanish Aspirated Stops by General American English Listeners.” Paper presented at the International Workshop on Cross-Language Speech Perception (CEHUM 2014), Braga, Portugal, January 30-31, 2014. Ohala, John J. 1993. “Sound change as nature&#39;s speech perception experiment.” Speech Communication, 13:155-161. Quilis, Antonio. 1993. Tratado de Fonología y Fonética Españolas. Madrid: Gredos. Ruch, Hanna and Jonathan Harrington. 2014. “Synchronic and diachronic factors in the change from pre-aspiration to post-aspiration in Andalusian Spanish.” Journal of Phonetics, 45:12-25. Strange, Winifred and Valerie Shafer. 2008. “Speech Perception in Second Language Learners.” In Phonology and Second Language Acquisition, edited by Jette G. Hansen Edwards and Mary L. Zampini. 153-191. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Torreira, Francisco. 2007. “Pre- and Post-Aspirated Stops in Andalusian Spanish.” In Prosodic and Segmental Issues in Romance, edited by Pilar Prieto, Joan Mascaro, and Maria-Josep Solé, 67–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Effects of place of articulation on Spanish coda /s/ perception

The perception of Western Andalusian Spanish aspirated stops by General American English listeners

In Western Andalusian Spanish (WAS), syllable- and word-final -s is realized as aspiration [h]. T... more In Western Andalusian Spanish (WAS), syllable- and word-final -s is realized as aspiration [h]. This phenomenon is not limited to southern Spain; it is also present in other areas such as the Canary Islands or the Caribbean and the Pacific countries. After aspiration, voiceless stops become aspirated [ph, th, kh] (Alvar, 1996; Gerfen, 2002; Torreira, 2007a, 2012). In the case of WAS, these stops are characterized by longer post-aspiration and shorter pre-aspiration than in other Spanish aspirating dialects (Torreira, 2007b). This study explores the perception of aspirated –s before this set of stops by 84 General American English (GAE) listeners, learners of Spanish, and aims at pointing out the acoustic characteristics that favor the identification of such underlying –s. Stimuli consisted of nouns and verbs ending in the morphological marker –s or in vowel, followed by different phonetic contexts, embedded in sentences. These sentences were presented randomly in an identification task with two forced-choice alternatives. Results of the identification of aspirated –s before the voiceless stops indicate that listeners identified [th] significantly better than [kh] (Z = -4.696, p &lt; .001), which in turn was better identified than [ph] (Z = -3.826, p &lt; .001). An acoustic analysis of the target stops in terms of previous vowels (pre-aspiration) and Voice Onset Time (VOT) (postaspiration) revealed no significant differences in VOT duration between the three aspirated stops [χ 2(2) = -.512, p = .77], while significant differences in the duration of their preceding vowels appeared [χ 2(2) = 6.03, p &lt; .05], which were longer before [th] than before the other two stops. Conversely, vowels before unaspirated [t] were particularly shorter than before the other two unaspirated stops [χ 2(2) = 6.53, p &lt; .05]. From this analysis, it seems that the longer pre-aspiration observed before [th] was a key factor in identification. References Alvar, M. (1996) Manual de Dialectología Hispánica. El Español de España. Barcelona: Ariel. Gerfen, C. (2002) Andalusian Codas. Probus, 14,(2), 247-277. Torreira, F. (2007a) Pre- and post-aspirated stops in Andalusian Spanish. In Pilar Prieto, Joan Mascaro &amp; Maria-Josep Solé (Eds.), Prosodic and Segmental Issues in Romance, (pp. 67–82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Torreira, F. (2007b) Coarticulation between aspirated-s and voiceless stops in Spanish: An interdialectal comparison. In N. Sagarra &amp; A. J. Toribio (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, (pp. 113–120). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Torreira, F. (2012) Investigating the nature of aspirated stops in Western Andalusian Spanish. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 42, 49-63.

The effect of noise on the identification of L2 dialect speech

When native listeners process continuous L1 speech, they ignore certain acoustic cues in favor of... more When native listeners process continuous L1 speech, they ignore certain acoustic cues in favor of those that are relevant, despite age, gender, or rate of speech of the speaker. This is why, when faced with unfamiliar L1 dialect variants, even these listeners may find certain difficulty and perceptual adjustment may need to take place (Cutler, Smits, &amp; Cooper, 2005). Certainly, familiarity with an L1 dialect renders better identification of its features (Sumner &amp; Samuel, 2009; Tuinman, Mitterer, &amp; Cutler, 2011); however, when adding noise to the task, the identification of the mainstream features seems to be more accurate (Clooper &amp; Bradlow, 2006). Nevertheless, L1 dialect variants do not seem to pose such a difficulty for identification as L1-L2 differences in phoneme inventory, especially when noise is added to the stimuli (Mayo, Florentine, &amp; Buss, 1997). A further step in difficulty for L2 listeners is the inclusion of L2 dialect variants. This study explores how three groups of General American English (GAE) listeners, L2 learners of Spanish of elementary (n = 6), high-intermediate (n = 19), and proficiency levels (n = 4), identify aspiration [h] in Western Andalusian Spanish (WAS) and sibilance [s] in Castilian Spanish (CS) in noise, according to their level of proficiency. The identification task consisted of target words ending in -s (plural nouns and second-person verbs) and distracter stimuli ending in vowel (singular nouns and third-person verbs) embedded in sentence contexts. Eight Spanish speakers (two males, two females per L1 dialect) recorded the sentences at a normal conversational rate. There were two written alternatives given for each spoken sentence, i.e., if the sentence played was Nunca comes nada dulce, the two options given were Nunca come nada dulce and Nunca comes nada dulce, so the correct option could not be inferred from reading the sentences alone. The overall identification of sibilance in the three conditions was similar for the three groups [χ2(2) = .526, p = .769], despite level of noise, and significantly higher than their identification of aspiration [χ2(1) = 51.514, p &lt;. 001]. For both elementary and proficiency listeners, a lower level of noise did not necessarily imply a higher identification of aspiration [elementary: χ2 (2) = 1.733, p = .420; proficiency: χ2 (2) = 1.077, p = .584]. High-intermediate listeners were the only group for which noise was an influential factor in this case [χ2 (2) = 13.455, p = .001]; their identification of aspiration increased as level of noise decreased. However, their performance was similar to that of elementary listeners at the three levels of noise (U = 42.5, p = .355), but significantly lower than that of proficiency listeners (U = 2, p &lt; .005). In this case, noise seems to be particularly relevant for the identification of the L2 dialect variant by those listeners in the developing stages of the L2, i.e., higher noise implied lower identification. For those learners in the initial and final stages of learning, identification seems to be more related to their proficiency than to noise itself. References Clopper, C.G.&amp; Bradlow, A.R. 2006. “Effects of dialect variation on speech intelligibility in noise”, Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, 119: 3424. Cutler, A., Smits, R., &amp; Cooper, N. 2005. “Vowel perception: Effects of non-native language versus nonnative dialect”, Speech Communication, 47: 32-42. Mayo, L. H., Florentine, M., &amp; Buss, S. 1997. “Age of second language acquisition and perception of speech in noise”, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40: 686-693. Sumner, M. &amp; Samuel, A. G. 2009. “The effect of experience on the perception and representation of dialect variants”, Journal of Memory and Language, 60 (4): 487-501. Tuinman, A., Mitterer, H., &amp; Cutler, A. 2011. “Perception of intrusive /r/ in English by native, cross-language and cross-dialect listeners”, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130: 1643-1652.

A Gender Study of E-mail Communication

This study case attempts to describe the differences in email style between female and male unive... more This study case attempts to describe the differences in email style between female and male university students in interaction with their instructor, a female in her late twenties. After a review of key concepts and background literature, our main goal is to analyze the messages according to a set of classification variables based on the work of Crystal (2001) and López Alonso (2006). This classification addresses the formality of traditional letter-writing and the informality of speech-like writing within the categories of message structure, openings, and closes. While definite conclusions cannot be drawn from one single piece of work, some differences seem to appear. Males tend to show a heterogeneous style which mainly depends on the topic of the message, whereas females seem to be more consistent in using a structured, traditional written style in correspondence, regardless of the topic of the message. Finally, context and addressee also seem to play an important role in the res...

The effect of exposure to an L2 dialect on L2 speech perception

In speech perception, L1 speakers ignore context-dependent variations to focus on those primary c... more In speech perception, L1 speakers ignore context-dependent variations to focus on those primary cues necessary to understand the semantic message of L1 speech, (Strange, 2011). L2 learners, on the other hand, are said to rely on the language-specific constraints of their L1 to process L2 speech (Best &amp; Tyler, 2007; Flege, 1995; Kuhl &amp; Iverson, 1995). This may be particularly relevant for the identification of sociophonetic variations of L2 canonical phonemes given in L2 dialects, when L2 learners must acquire the cues L1 speakers rely on when identifying these variations. Thus, familiarity with an L2 dialect favors the identification of its phonetic features (Schmidt, 2009). This study explores the identification of an L2 dialect variant by L2 learners with and without exposure to the dialect. Specifically, it studies how General American English (GAE) learners of Spanish identify the aspiration of implosive /s/ given in Western Andalusian Spanish (WAS) as opposed to the canonical sibilance given in Castilian Spanish (CS). Three sets of listeners participated in the study: i) nine GAE listeners with no prior stay in a Spanish-speaking country, unfamiliar with WAS (group1); ii) fourteen GAE listeners, after their arrival in Seville (Spain) where aspiration is found (group2), and iii) ten GAE listeners, after 2 months of stay in Seville (group3). Four bilingual listeners participated as control group. Target words ending in -s were plural nouns and second-person verbs embedded in sentence contexts, while singular nouns and third-person verbs, which end in vowel, were also included as distracter stimuli. Spanish speakers (one male, one female per L2 dialect) were instructed to speak as naturally as possible, as if they were talking to a friend at a normal conversational rate. There were two written alternatives given for each spoken sentence, i.e., if the sentence played was Nunca comes nada dulce, the two options given were Nunca come nada dulce and Nunca comes nada dulce, so the correct option could not be inferred from reading the sentences alone. Results indicate that CS [s] was identified similarly by the three groups under study [χ2(2) = 0, p = 1] regardless of exposure, while there were statistically significant differences in the identification of WAS [h] between the three groups of listeners [χ2(2) = 7.19, p &lt; .05], specifically, between group1 and group3 (U = 13.5, p = .01). These findings are consistent with those obtained by Schmidt (2009), indicating that a stay in a country where the Spanish dialect variant is spoken positively affects the identification of these features. As L1 and L2 sounds are related at an allophonic level that is position-sensitive (Flege, 1995), even when English has /s/ and /h/ phonemes, the fact that /h/ does not represent /s/ in an implosive or any other position suggests that GAE speakers will not identify it as such initially. As time of exposure increases, so does its effect on the identification of aspiration. References Best, C. T. &amp; Tyler, M. D. 2007. “Nonnative and second-language speech perception. Commonalities and complementarities”, Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In Honor of James Emil Flege. Eds. O-S. Bohn &amp; M. J. Munro. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 31-52. Flege, J.E. 1995. “Second-language speech learning: theory, findings, and problems”, Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience, Issues in Cross-linguistic Research. Ed. W. Strange. Timonium, MD: York Press. 233-277. Kuhl, P. K. &amp; Iverson, P. 1995. “Linguistic experience and the perceptual magnet effect”, Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross-linguistic Research. Ed. W. Strange. Timonium, MD: York Press, 121-154. Schmidt, L. B. 2009. “The effect of dialect familiarity via a study abroad experience on L2 comprehension of Spanish”, Selected Proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Eds. J. Collentine et al. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla. 143-154. Strange, W. 2011. “Automatic selective perception (ASP) of ﬁrst and second language speech: A working model”, Journal of Phonetics, 36 (1): 141-157.

From Postaspiration to Affrication: New Phonetic Contexts in Western Andalusian Spanish

Western Andalusian Spanish is one of the many coda /s/ weakening varieties of Spanish in the worl... more Western Andalusian Spanish is one of the many coda /s/ weakening varieties of Spanish in the world. It is documented that there is a growing tendency for speakers of this variety to realize /st/ clusters not only with postaspiration (pasta [pát̪ h a]) rather than preaspiration (pasta [páht̪a]), but also with affrication (pasta [pát̪ s a]). In this study, we present evidence of postaspiration and affrication beyond /st/ clusters, i.e., also in stop + /t/ clusters, as detected auditorily in recorded background interviews with Western Andalusian Spanish speakers. Further acoustic analyses of duration, zero crossing rate, and center of gravity of the friction segment in the tokens corroborated the existence of postaspiration and affrication in both contexts. However, while postaspirated tokens were similar in all parameters for both /st/ and /Ct/ clusters, affricated tokens presented higher frequency and concentration of energy in /Ct/ clusters. Further research into these emerging phen...

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