Acoustic Analysis of L2 Spanish /a/

An acoustic analysis of the
centralization of L2 Spanish /a/ in adult
L1 English-speaking learners
Alexander Aldrich
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Brigham Young University
Friday, October 9, 2015 1

Research questions
This project aims to contribute to the field of SLA by using an
acoustic analysis to study the impact that spending an extensive
time living abroad, or about two years, has on L2 Spanish vowel
acquisition in different tasks when compared to AH learners who
have very little experience living in a Spanish-speaking
country.
Although some studies have researched L2 Spanish vowel
acquisition by L1 speakers, none have compared production across
a range of task types (Elliott, 1995; Elliott, 1997; Menke & Face,
2010; Siamões, 1996; Simonet & Cobb 2015; Stevens, 2011)

Research questions
1. Do native English-speaking adult learners who have
spent an extended period of time in a Spanish-
speaking country and native English-speaking adult
learners who have very little experience living in a
Spanish-speaking country centralize the Spanish low
central vowel /a/?
2. If these populations do centralize their L2 Spanish /a/,
does their centralization vary by task type? Does one
group centralize more than another in different tasks?

Methodology: Participants
Three groups:
1. AH group (n=9)
2. RM group (n=10)
3. NS group (n=5)

At-home (AH) group:
• Learned Spanish in the classroom.
• Have spent at most three weeks or less in a Spanish-speaking
country.
• Have never taken a Spanish phonetics class.
• No heritage speakers were included.
• One informant reported having studied in Spanish immersion in
lower

RM group:
• Recently returned from a religious volunteer missionary
experience while living in a Spanish-speaking country for about
two years.
• Often called “returned missionaries”: referred to as RM group.
• Not considered students during time spent living abroad as
missionaries.

RM group:
• Spent about nine weeks at the Missionary Training Center
(MTC), an intensive language-study program that revolves
around religious study and preparation.
• Taught basic Spanish grammar and vocabulary by college-aged
instructors who had learned Spanish through the same type of
experience.
• Quality of the Spanish instruction at MTC is unknown.

RM group:
• Spent about 22 months living in their assigned Spanish-speaking
countries.
• Lived, associated, and worked with native Spanish speakers on a
daily basis.
• Actual amount of time spent with native Spanish speakers is
unknown.

Previous research involving populations similar to RM group:
Alvord, S. M., & Christiansen, D. E. (2012)
Bean, A. (2013)
Dewey, D., & Clifford, R. T. (2012)
Schwaller, G., & Miller, R. M. (2012)
Tanner, J. D. (2012)

• AH and RM groups range in age
from 17 to 23 years.
• Both were enrolled in the same
third-year Spanish grammar
course at their university at the
time of the study.

Gender:
• AH group consists of 8 females and 1 male.
• RM group consists of 10 males.
Several studies have shown that the difference between male and
female L2 phonological acquisition does not yield a significant
result. (See Elliott, 1995a; Piske, MacKay & Flege, 2001;
Shively, 2008; Stevens, 2011;
Tahta, Wood & Loewenthal, 1981.)

Native-speaker (NS) group:
• Came to U.S. to pursue
university studies.
• Proficiency in English is
unknown.

Although informants from all groups either lived in or are from
many different Spanish-speaking countries, dialectal variation in
vowel quality, as observed in the English vowel system, does not
exist in Spanish.
Hualde (2005, pp. 127–128) states:
Vowel qualities are remarkably stable among Spanish
dialects. There is nothing in Spanish like the
differences in vowel quality that we find across
geographical and social varieties of English.

Methodology: Procedures and
Instruments
• Three tasks administered: Oral Interview (OI), Short
Story (SS), and Word List (WL)
• OI: lasted between 5 and 10 minutes modeled after the
Oral Proficiency Interview established by ACTFL.
• SS: titled Rita la fabulosa, contained 400 words, edited
to include specific key words and segments.
• WL: consisted of 52 words taken from the short story.

Instruments
• Audio was recorded digitally.
• Speech samples analyzed using Praat speech-signaling
software.
• 10 stressed and 10 unstressed tokens of /a/ were taken
from each task (OI, SS, and WL).
• Total of 60 tokens per informant. Sum of 1,440 tokens
analyzed.
• F1 and F2 values extracted at midpoint of token using
a formant-checking algorithm script.

Instruments
• OI task: first 10 stressed and 10 unstressed token that
occurred after the 2-minute mark
• SS task: first 10 stressed and 10 unstressed token that
occurred after the 1-minute mark
• WL task: first 10 stressed and 10 unstressed tokens
that occurred were included

Instruments
• The vowel boundaries marked on Praat were checked a
2nd time by this researcher.
• Tokens were excluded from analysis if they became
diphthongized due to metathesis or synalepha.
• Example:
• Metathesis: Cascarrabias pronounced
[kas.ka.ɾjá.bas]
• Synalepha: Su amiga pronounced [swa.mí.ɣa]

Instruments
• To account for the physiological differences between
informants, the data were normalized using the Bark
method described by
Thomas and Kendall (2007).
• Data underwent a mixed-design analysis of variance
(ANOVA) using comprehensive data analysis software
called SAS (v. 9.3).
• Probability level (p-value) for significance for all the
statistical tests was set at <0.05

Results
ANOVA:
F1 values yielded significant result for:
• Group F (2,21) = 6.17 p < 0.05
• Task F (2,42) = 43.68 p < 0.05
• Stress F (1,21) = 140.19 p < 0.05
• Group by Task F (4,42) = 4.07 p < 0.05
• Group by Task by Stress F (4,42) = 2.93
p < 0.05
All other interactions were found to be negligible.

Results
ANOVA:
F2 values significant for:
• Group F (2,21) = 10.33 p < 0.05
• Stress F (1,21) = 140.19 p < 0.05
All other interactions were negligible.

Results: Oral Interview Task
Means of stressed and unstressed F1 and F2 (Bark) for each group

Results: Oral Interview Task
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
123456789101112131415
F1Bark
F2 Bark
RM OPI /á/
RM OPI /a/
AH OPI /á/
AH OPI /a/
NS OPI /á/
NS OPI /a/

Results: Short Story Task

Results: Short Story Task
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
123456789101112131415
F1Bark
F2 Bark
RM SS /á/
RM SS /a/
AH SS /á/
AH SS /a/
NS SS /á/
NS SS /a/

Results: Word List Task

Results: Word List Task
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
123456789101112131415
F1Bark
F2 Bark
RM WL
RM WL
AH WL /á/
AH WL /a/
NS WL /á/
NS WL /a/

Results: All tasks
Means of stressed and unstressed F1 and F2 (Bark) for each group in all tasks
5
6
7
8
9101112
F1Bark
F2 Bark
RM WL
RM SS
RM OI
AH WL
AH SS
AH OI
NS WL
NS SS
NS OI

Discussion
Research Question #1: Do native English-speaking adult learners
who have spent an extended period of time in a Spanish-speaking
country (RM) and native English-speaking adult learners who
have very little experience living in a Spanish-speaking country
(AH) centralize the Spanish low central vowel /a/?

Discussion: RM Group
RM Group:
OI Task:
• Difference in F1 /á/ and F1 /a/ yielded significant (p<0.05)
result.
result.
SS Task:
result.
WL Task:
• All interactions found negligible.

Discussion: AH Group
AH Group:
OI Task:
result.
SS Task:
result.
WL Task:
result.

Discussion: Centralization
• The data suggest that both RM and AH populations transfer
their L1 vowel system to their L2 and produce a centralized
Spanish /a/ in unstressed environments, just as they do in their
L1.
• English vowels commonly centralize to the schwa [ə] within
polysyllabic words in unstressed environments.
• Results support Stockwell & Bowen (1965) in that similarities
that L1 English speakers perceive between English and Spanish
can cause them to transfer their vowel system to L2 Spanish
production (i.e. the transfer of schwa [ə] in unstressed
syllables).

Discussion: Task Type
Research Question #2: If these populations do centralize their L2
Spanish /a/, does their centralization vary by task type? Does one
group centralize more than another in different tasks?
• The AH group centralized (p<0.05) in each task.
• The RM group centralized (p<0.05) in the OI and SS tasks only.

Discussion: Task Type
• These results seem to support Major (2004) that formality does
in fact play a role in decreased language transfer:
“In general, it has been found that the more formal the style, the
less L1 transfer and the greater the frequency of [target-like]
forms” (p. 170).
• Results suggest that living abroad for an extensive period of
time, such as the RM group, versus spending only a few weeks
or less in a Spanish speaking country, can positively affect
language production, at least in formal tasks.

Discussion: NS Group
NS Group:
OI Task:
SS Task:
result.
WL Task:

• Traditional description of a monolingual Spanish vowel system
suggests that Spanish vowels are stable and not subject to the
same variability as that of the English vowel system.
• However, several studies have found some form of statistically
significant vowel reduction in native Spanish speakers.
(Canellada & Zamora Vicente, 1960;
Harmegnies & Poch-Olivé, 1992; Lope Blanch, 1963)
• Results from present study add to the literature by supporting
other researchers’ findings that significant centralization of
Spanish vowels by native Spanish speakers may in fact exist.

• Centralization of Spanish vowels also occurs among
Spanish/English bilinguals (Alvord & Rogers, 2014; Menke &
Face, 2010) and heritage Spanish speakers (Ronquest, 2013).

Discussion: Production of /á/
• Centralization occurs in English in unstressed environments
rather than in stressed.
• The ANOVA yielded significant results in the interaction
between RM group’s F2 /á/ and the NS group’s F2 /á/.
• Although data of the production of the AH and RM groups’
English vowel system were not collected for comparison, the
RM group produced a stressed /á/ that appears to mimic a
backed /a/, much like the English /ɑ/.

Discussion: Production of /á/
• Hualde (2010, p. 125) states that the Spanish low vowel /a/ is
closer in quality to the English /ɑ/ than any other English vowel.
• The significant interaction found between the RM group’s
production of /á/ and that of the NS group could be due to the
fact that these two phonemes are the most similar when
comparing the two vowel systems.
• This supports Flege’s (2005) Speech Learning Model that
learners categorize L2 sounds as similar or dissimilar, and may
consider an L2 sound as equivalent to that of an L1 sound.
• These results indicate that L1 language transfer into L2 Spanish
occurred in both stressed and unstressed environments in the
case of the RM group.

Discussion: Limitations
• The project focused only on the production of a single vowel
phoneme /a/ rather than the entire Spanish vowel system
• Learner variables, such as motivation, age, and gender, were not
included in the statistical analysis
• A relatively small number of informants in each group:
• AH group (n=9)
• RM group (n=10)
• NS group (n=5)

Discussion: Further research
• Include the entire Spanish vowel system
• Study what impact learner variables, including motivation and
cultural sensitivity, may play on L2 Spanish vowel acquisition.
• Include full English vowel system of L1 populations to have a
more accurate visual of the assimilation and language transfer
that may occur in L2 Spanish.
• Study these populations’ ability to be understood by native
Spanish speakers.

Conclusion
This project aimed to contribute to the literature by using precise
analysis techniques to study the impact that spending an
extensive time living abroad, or about two years, has on L2
Spanish vowel acquisition in different tasks when compared to
AH learners who have very little experience living in a
Spanish-speaking country.

Conclusion
• AH group centralized (p<0.05) in all three tasks: OI, SS, and
WL.
• RM group centralized (p<0.05) in all but the WL task.
• NS group centralized (p<0.05) in SS task only.

Conclusion
• The present study seems to support the literature that L1 language
transfer into L2 does indeed exist across various task types.
• Adds to the literature by showing that those who lived for an
extensive period of time, roughly two years, did not centralize
the Spanish /a/ in the formal WL task, whereas the AH learners
did.
• Results suggest that living in a Spanish-speaking country for an
extensive period of time may have a positive impact on L2
Spanish vowel acquisition.
• Results also suggest that L1 transfer into L2 was present not
only in an unstressed environment, but in a stressed environment,
as well.

Conclusion
• Finally, it was found that the NS group produced a significantly
higher (p<0.05) unstressed /a/ than the stressed /á/ in the SS
task.
• Results seem to support Harmegnies and Poch-Olivé (1992),
who found significant centralization in a native Spanish speaker,
in addition to other studies that report vowel reduction and
elision in Spanish
(Canellada and Zamora Vicente 1960, Lope Blanch 1963).
Others found similar results among Spanish/English bilinguals
(Menke and Face 2010, Rogers 2012) and heritage speakers
(Ronquest 2013).

Conclusion
It is hoped that the results from this study may add to today’s
literature by providing a greater understanding of how well L2
Spanish learners acquire the Spanish vowel system and what
effect living in a Spanish-speaking country may have on L2
Spanish learners in their pronunciation of Spanish vowels.

Acoustic Analysis of L2 Spanish /a/

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