English speech rhythm to Greek students

2010

This paper examines the effectiveness of pronunciation teaching to Greek state school students of three different ages (10, 13 and 15 years old). In particular, it examines the production of VOT of word initial /p, t, k/ and /b, d, g/ and preceding vowel duration of word-final stops. Recordings of students’ speech samples were made before and after the teaching intervention, which involved 12 pronunciation lessons embedded in the regular English language lessons at the state school. The study examines: (a) the effectiveness of pronunciation teaching in a foreign language (FL) context, (b) the role of students’ age, (c) the relation of the results to theories of phonological acquisition. The results suggest that pronunciation instruction is applicable and effective in a FL context and could be integrated into EFL

Proceedings of the ... International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2011

Several global and specific rhythm metrics and speech rate were used to characterize differences in the rhythms of 5- and 8-year-olds' spoken English. The results were that only speech rate and the rate-normalized Pairwise Variability Index (nPVI) differentiated between 5- and 8-year-olds' speech. A further result was that the variance in nPVI values was better explained by a specific measure devised to capture patterns of supralexical accenting than by the factor of age expressed in months. These results are taken to suggest that the protracted acquisition of English rhythm may be due in part to the slow rate at which children acquire prosodically conditioned vowel reduction.

19th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 2011

The paper discusses the effectiveness of pronunciation teaching of English to Greek state school students aged 16 years old. More specifically, it examines the production of English vowels by Greek learners of English in an English Foreign Language (EFL) context. Two different teaching methods were implemented, which resulted in having two different experimental groups; an explicit vs. an implicit one. The former received explicit teaching of English pronunciation through a variety of activities while the latter was taught implicitly via the use of recasts. The results showed that Greek students of both experimental groups experienced difficulties in producing the target vowels. As regards vowel quantity (duration), it was found that the implicit and control groups produced some target vowel values which were consistent with those of native speakers.

Journal of The Acoustical Society of America, 2011

This study investigated the integration of word-and phrase-level prominences in speech produced by 25 school-aged children (6;2 to 7;3) and 25 adults. Participants produced disyllabic number words in a straight count condition and in two phrasal conditions, namely, a stress clash and non-clash phrasal context. Duration and amplitude measures of syllable rhymes were used to assess the realization of lexical stress, and fundamental frequency (F0) measures were used to assess the realization of phrasal pitch accents across conditions. Results showed that the duration and F0 correlates varied independently of each other as a function of condition in child speech, but much less so in adult speech. The group differences were taken to indicate that 6-year-old children have yet to develop prosodic structures with integrated prominence. Structural and pragmatic interpretations of the results are discussed.

Selected papers on theoretical and applied linguistics …, 2007

English speech rhythm in instructed learners. Its development as shown by Varco V, 2019

Speech rhythm is viewed as the product of different phonetic and phonological properties. This work shows the rhythmic acquisition of instructed learners of English as an L2 whose mother tongue is Spanish. Two main variables are considered: levels of language proficiency at university and type of elicitation task. Taking into account that rhythm can be measured acoustically, the production of speech is computed by means of the metric VarcoV, which considers the duration of vocalic intervals. The metric measurements reflect the development of L2 spea-like rhythm affected by the type of task.

2016

This study examined the identification and production of English consonants by Greek learners of English. Consonant identification was examined in quiet and in two types of noise, a competing talker and an 8-speaker babble. Consonant production was assessed by having English listeners identify the English consonants produced by Greek speakers. Greek speakers achieved higher identification scores in quiet than in noise and the 8-speaker babble had a more detrimental effect in their scores than the competing speaker. Difficulties with specific English consonants were not always similar across modalities; some consonants proved easy to identify but difficult to produce and vice versa.

Research in Language, 2010

This paper will examine rhythmic differences among native and non-native accents of English, and report on a pilot experiment investigating a hypothesized interaction between rhythm and vowel quality. A new metric, % SteadyState, an acoustic measure that quantifies the purity of vowels, appears to capture rhythmic differences that have been reported among various native and non-native accents of English. In the tradition of other recently developed rhythm metrics, these findings suggest a link between rhythm and segmental phonology. Additionally, the perspective gained from this study may be beneficial to learners whose goal is native-like vowel quality, offering an understanding of the dynamic properties of English vowels.

It has been demonstrated repeatedly that durational characteristics of consonantal (C) and vocalic (V) intervals are robust acoustic correlates of rhythm class (stress-timed, syllable-timed, moratimed). Here, we investigate how such rhythm measurements change during the acquisition of a second language. In a longitudinal study, 9 native speakers of Spanish were recorded reading a text in English before and after a year of English language training at university level. A control group of 9 native English speakers read the same text. Standard rhythm metrics (%V, deltaC, deltaV, PVI) were calculated for all recordings. Results reveal no significant statistical difference in measurable rhythm pre and post training. The findings are discussed in connection with theoretical issues of rhythm metrics and practical issues of L2 English by Spanish speakers.

Journal of the Tohoku English Language Education Society 34, 2014

In this paper, we examine the rhythm of English as spoken by Japanese native speakers. It is commonly said that the rhythm types of world languages can be divided into two groups. On the one hand, languages like English, German and Dutch have stress-timed rhythm, allowing a greater range of syllable structures, with complex codas and onsets, and with heavier syllables that are likely to attract stress, and also tend to reduce unstressed vowels when compared with vowels in stressed syllables: a consonant-vowel-consonant syllable structure (closed syllable structure: mainly Germanic languages). On the other hand, languages such as Japanese, Spanish and Italian are syllable-timed, which have a consonant-vowel syllable structure (open syllable structure: mainly found in Romance languages, as well as Japanese) without reduction of unstressed vowels. As a result of transfer, many Japanese students speak English with a syllable-timed rhythm instead of a stress-timed rhythm. This paper reports on the results of a study conducted to compare the intelligibility of Japanese English using a syllable-timed rhythm and that using a stressed-timed rhythm. Results show that a stress-timed rhythm is significantly more intelligible than a syllable-timed rhythm for native English speakers. We advise Japanese learners of English to be aware of the importance of speaking English with stress-timed rhythm.