EFFECTS OF SELECTED PHONETIC ASPECTS IN 'HIE TRANSMISSION OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE DISSERTATION Presentod in Partial Fulfillment of tho Requirement* for tho Dogroe Doctor of Philosophy in tho Graduate School of The Ohio State University Dy CRUZ AURELIA CANCEL FERRER HARDIGREE, D.A., M.S. Tho Ohio State University 1957 Approved by: 7 Adviser / Department of Speech TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION............... 1 The Spanish Language in America ................ 1 General Characteristics and Minor Variations Among Spanish-Americans.............. 0 General Characteristics . ................ 9 S e s e o ................................. g Y e f s m o .............................. 10 Minor Variations .... ....... ...... 12 Orthographio ® > [s] .................... 12 Ceceo . 12 Orthographic x > C3 3, Cs3, Cg*3» Cko3 . 13 Orthographic r and rr> [r3 [ r ] ......... 14 Orthographic d > [ d 3 ....... ,. .......... 15 V o w e l s ......... 16 Orthographic-Phonetic Sound System ............. 17 Orthographio-Phonetic Units ................ 17 Consonants ..... ...... 17 V o w e l s ............................... 20 D i p h t h o n g s ........................... 22 S u m mary.................................... 23 II. PURPOSE AND R A T I O N A L E ............................ 25 III. REVIEW OF JEHEILITERATURE.......................... 28 Tests Developed to Evaluate Equipment ........... 29 Bell Telephone Tests ........... 29 Harvard (Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory) Tests. 30 Spanish Test for Hearing A i d s ........... 32 Tests Developed to Evaluate Speakers and Listeners ................ .......... 33 Jones Enunciation Test .......... 33 Voice Communication Laboratory (Waco) Write-Down Lists ............ 33 Multiple-Choice Tests ..... ......... 34 Spanish Speech Reception Test ......... 35 Tests Developed to Study the M e s s a g e ........... 36 Intelligibility of Sounds ......... 36 Intelligibility of English Words ....... 37 Intelligibility of Spanish Words ....... 38 Familiarity upon Intelligibility ..... 39 Phonetic Contrast of Words 39 Dialectal Differences ........................ * 40 Differences Among American-English Dialeots • ............... 40 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE III. (Continued) Differences Among English, Spanish, and French Dialects ...................... 42 Differences Among American; ..v , British, and French Talkers and Listeners . ................ 43 Alternate Pronunciations Among Americans and Foreign Nations.................. 43 Differences Among Spanish-Americans .... 44 Summary ............................... 45 XV. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE........................... 47 Selection of the Stimulus W o r d ................. 47 Source of the Stimulus W o r d ......... 47 fype of Stimulus Word .................. 48 Preliminary Grouping of Words ....... 48 The Stimulus Items ................ 49 Speakers ............ 49 Listeners............ '................ 50 Testing Procedure ............................. 51 Recording of the Stimuli ......... 51 Responding to the S t i muli.............. 53 Scoring Procedure 54 Types of Errors ....................... 54 Intelligibility Values of Listeners and Speakers (Confounded), and Lists .... 54 intelligibility Value of the Stimulus I t e m s ....................... ...•• 55 Orthographic-Phonetic Contribution to Intelligibility ...................... 55 Preservation-in-Error Values ....... 55 Systematic Substitutions of Orthographic- Phonetic U n i t s ............ 56 Error-Response Words .............. 57 Reliability of the S c o r i n g ............ 57 Reliability of Tabulating 57 Statistical Procedure 58 Summary • . ............................... 58 V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.................... 60 Results ...... .................... ... 60 iii TABLE OP CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE V. (Continued) Factors that Relate to the Stability of a Sample ......... 61 The Relation Between the Relative Intellig­ ibility of Words in Noise and in Quiet • 61 The Relative Intelligibility of Spanish- American Speaker-Listening Panel Combinations ........................ 63 The Relative Intelligibility of 50-Word L i s t s ........................... * 63 Factors that Contribute to the Intelligibility of the Spanish "Grave" Words ....... 66 Phonetic Length of Word ........... 6 8 Order and Position of Phonemes ...... 70 The Contribution to Intelligibility of Specific Orthographic-Phonetic Units . • 71 Preservation-in-Error .......... 73 Comparison of Orthographic-Phonetic Intel­ ligibility and Preservation-in-Error V a l u e s ............ 75 The Influence of Accent on Relative Vowel Intelligibility ...................... 76 Substitutions of Sounds • •••••...• 77 Confusion or "Decoy" Words ••..•••• 79 Discussion ..••••.. ....... 98 Factors that Relate to the Stability of a Sample .............. 98 Intelligibility in Quiet and Noise .... 98 The Spanish-American Speaker-Listening Combination in Quiet and in Noise .... 98 Intelligibility of 50-Word Lists ........ 99 Factors that Contribute to the Intelligibility of Spanish Words 99 Phonetic Length of the Word ••••.••• 99 Comparison of Orthographic-Phonetic Units . 104 and Preservation-in-Error Values .... 104 The Influence of Accent Upon Vowel Intel­ ligibility .............. 105 Substitutions of Sounds • . • •• . • •• 105' Summary ••••••••••••••.•••••• 106 VI- SUMMARY . ......... 107 iv TABLE OP CONTENTS PAGE I- BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................... Ill APPENDIX A LISTS OF SPANISH BISYLLABIC "GRAVE WORDS SELECTED FROM NEWSPAPERS OF 19 SPANISH- AMERICAN COUNTRIES AND THE COUNTRIES OF THE NEWSPAPERS IN WHICH THE WORDS WERE FOUND ......... 115 APPENDIX B INTELLIGIBILITY VALUES OF 1,000 SPANISH "GRAVE" WORDS IN QUIET AND IN NOISE IN RANK ORDER OF VALUES OBTAINED IN THE NOISE CONDITION ....... 152 APPENDIX C THE EFFECT OF INDIVIDUAL ORTHOGRAPHIC-PHONEMES UPON THE INTELLIGIBILITY OF THE SPANISH BISYLLABIC "GRAVE" WORDS ............... 165 APPENDIX D RANK-ORDER CORRELATION OF PRESERVATION-IN- ERROR VALUES OF PHONETIC UNITS AND INTELLIGIBILITY VALUES OF WORDS CONTAINING THOSE PHONETIC UNITS ................ 168 APPENDIX E DISTRIBUTION OF SUBSTITUTIONS FOR VOICELESS AND VOICED SOUNDS IN THE1 0 0 -ITEM LIST . 170 APPENDIX F DISTRIBUTION OF INTELLIGIBILITY SCORES OF 65 LISTENERS IN QUIET AND NOISE CONDITIONS . 175 AUTOBIOGRAPHY ....... .... 177 V v LISTS OP TABLES TABLE PAGE 1* Orthographic-Phonetic Sound System of the Spanish- American Language........................... 18 2* Description of the Consonantal and Vowel Sounds of Spanish in Latin America. ............. 21 3* Distribution of Sounds in Each of Egan's 50-Word Phonetically Balanced Lists of English Monosyllables. ........ 31 4. Nationalities of Listeners and Speakers and the Number from Each Country.................... 52 5. Distribution of Intelligibility Values of 1,000 and 100 Spanish "Grave" Words in Quiet and Noise Conditions . * 62 6 . Summary of Analysis of Variance of the Intelligi­ bility Values of Ten Speaker-Listening Panel Combinations Responding to 100 Spanish-American Words in Quiet .......... 64 7. Summary of Two Analyses of Variance of the Intelligibility Values of 50-Word Lists of Spanish-American Words Under Two Testing Conditions................................. 65 8 . Summary of an Analysis of Variance Among 20 Lists of Spanish-American "Grave" Words, 10 Speaker- Listening Panel Combinations, and Listening Conditions.................. 67 9 . Summary of Analysis of Variance of the Intellig- bility Values of 100 Spanish-American "Grave" Words with Three and Pour, Five, and Six and Seven Sounds .......... • 69 10. Orthographic-Phonetic Units that Apparently Increase or Decrease the Intelligibility of the Spanish Words in the Noise Condition......... 72 1 1 . Preservation-in-Error Value Analysis in 100 Spanish Words in the Noise Condition •••••• 74 vi LIST OF TABLES (Continued) 12. A Contingency Table Showing Voiced-Voiceless Substitutions for Voiced-Voiceless Stimuli in the Responses of 65 Listenersto 100 Vords . • 78 13. One Thousand Bisyllabic Spanish "Grave" Words, An Index to the Organization of the Test Lists, and the Three Most frequent Error- Responses in the Noise Condition........ • 80 14* Distribution of the Intelligibility Values and the Types of Errors Per Speaker-Listening Panel in Quiet and in Noise of 1,000 Spanish- American "Grave" Words ............... 100 15. Distribution of Errors, Correct Responses, and Intelligibility Values of Twenty Lists of Spanish-American Words Under Conditions of Quiet and Noise .......................... 101 vii LIST OF MAPS MAP PAGE I. GEOGRAPHICAL VARIATIONS OF THE SPANISH- AMERICAN LANGUAGE ............................... 6 ▼ill CHAPTER I THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN AMERICA Spanish is the normal medium of communication among the peoples of Spain and most of the countries of Spanish-Amerioa, and among groups of people in a number of other countries, such as The Republic of the Philippines and Turkey* It is mutually intelligible among the peoples of these countries although it presents a number of differences in dialect among the various geographic areas where it is spoken, among different social levels, and in different social situations* Castilian is a pronunciation dialect characteristic of Castile, Spain* Two of the features of Castilian are the contrasts (1) between the c and g, and g and g, and (2) between £ and 11* Most of the other pronunciation dialects of the Spanish language do not 1.2 / make these distinctions* ’ However, Navarro Tomas and Espinosa describe the "correct" or "standard" Spanish