Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2000
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MA
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
Committee Chair
Johan Seynnaeve.
Committee Co-Chair
Susan Briadi
Committee Member
Norman Lass
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to determine what relates most closely to the degree of perceived foreign accent in the English speech of native Spanish speakers: intonation, vowel length, stress, voice onset time (VOT), or segmental accuracy. Nineteen native English speaking listeners rated speech samples from 7 native English speakers and 15 native Spanish speakers for comprehensibility and degree of foreign accent. The speech samples were analyzed spectrographically and auditorally to obtain numerical values for each variable. These values and the average foreign accent scores were submitted to Pearson correlations. Results show that the average foreign accent scores were significantly correlated with three variables: the length of stressed vowels (r = -.48, p < .05), VOT (r = -.62, p < .01), and segmental accuracy (r = .92, p < .001). Segmental accuracy correlated most significantly with the foreign accent scores.
Recommended Citation
Kropf, Corinne Ann, "Perception and analysis of Spanish accents in English speech" (2000). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 832.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/832