Abstract
Vowels in most native varieties of English are characterized by dynamic changes in formant frequencies, an acoustic feature that has been found to be crucial for L1 listeners in vowel identification. By contrast, the acoustic realization of vowels in Polish is characterized by more stable formant patters. This paper presents an acoustic and perceptual study investigating the consequences of these differences for Polish learners of English. Acoustic data reveal that learners at a higher level of proficiency produce more robust formant dynamics. A listening test with L1 English listeners revealed that more dynamic vowel realizations are associated with higher ratings on a scale of foreign accentedness. The cross-language differences may be explained from the perspective of the Onset Prominence model, a theory of phonological representation in which certain ‘phonetic details’ may be attributed to phonological parameter settings.
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Notes
- 1.
On the basis of its rich inventory of consonant clusters, some authors (e.g., Ramus et al., 1999) have suggested that Polish is not a true syllable-timed language. See White & Mattys (2007) and Schwartz (2010) for arguments that vowel reduction metrics better capture the assumed rhythmic categories than phonotactic metrics. See also Wagner (2007) and Malisz (2013) for evidence that, at least for spontaneous speech, Polish shows syllable timing in coupled oscillator models.
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Schwartz, G. (2015). Vowel Dynamics for Polish Learners of English. In: Waniek-Klimczak, E., Pawlak, M. (eds) Teaching and Researching the Pronunciation of English. Second Language Learning and Teaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11092-9_12
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