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Bidirectional Perception of Lexical Prominence in Spanish and Japanese As Second Languages

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Bidirectional Perception of Lexical Prominence in Spanish and Japanese As Second Languages Bidirectional perception of lexical prominence in Spanish and Japanese as second languages José Joaquín Atria A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of University College London Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences University College London 2016 1 Perception of l2 Spanish and Japanese prominence 2 I, José Joaquín Atria, confirm that the work presented in this thesis ismy own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the work. 3 This dissertation was typeset usingƎ X LATEX. The main font in this document is Linux Libertine. Margin notes areset in Linux Biolinum, and monospaced text is set in Inconsolata. Japanese text is set in Takao Mincho. PGFPlots and Inkscape were used to generate plots and figures. The fleuron ornament was provided by Vectorian. The digital version of this document contains no raster graphics. This dissertation was made entirely with Free Software. 4 Abstract Perception of novel phonetic contrasts in a second language has been stud- ied extensively, but suprasegmentals have seen relatively little attention even though difficulties at this level can strongly impact comprehension. Available studies suggest that the perception of segmental and supraseg- mental categories are subject to similar factors, but evidence is not en- tirely conclusive. Additionally, studies focusing on the perception of lexical prominence have suggested that perception across languages with different accent types might be particularly problematic, meaning that these effects in particular would be independent of the direction of language learning. This dissertation explores both of these questions by studying theper- ception of lexical prominence by second-language learners in Spanish (a stress-accent language) and Japanese (a pitch-accent language). Following a bidirectional approach, it examines whether the perception of phonolog- ically different types of lexical prominence is subject to similar effects as those traditionally identified for cross-linguistic segmental perception, and how these relate to the direction of learning. A first set of studies provides a comparative acoustic description of prominence in both languages, and presents the results of an identification task with natural words in different positions within a sentence. Using mul- tiple speakers, these tests showed that the difficulties seen by both groups are different and related to features in their l1, and that despite phonolog- ical differences, contexts existed in which high performance was possible. A second set of studies explored the sensitivity of non-native listeners to secondary acoustic cues and the development of new accentual categories, 5 Perception of l2 Spanish and Japanese prominence and showed effects of learning for both groups and a strong sensitivity to duration for learners of Spanish. Learners of Japanese showed extremely poor category development for unaccented words in particular. Overall results show that existing research on sla is applicable to suprasegmental perception, and that the transfer effects affecting both groups have different domains and scope. The implications for language teaching and theories of l2 perception are discussed. 6 Acknowledgements Nothing could have prepared me for what doing a PhD would actually en- tail. The time spent, the uncertainty, the insecurities, the failures anddead ends… and at the end, the elation and relief of a work well done. If I had a data point for each time I stopped and thought that the whole endeavour was hopeless; for each time I changed my mind and thought that it was not only worthwhile but extremely exciting; for each time I looked back and thought that something should have been done differently, my results would have much more statistical power. Definitely the most humbling part of the entire experience was tore- alise just how many people are needed to finish a PhD, how many lives are touched in the process, and how thankful you feel for all the ways in which the people around you helped you get to the end. This is what makes an acknowledgement section so necessary, and why writing one seems so futile: because for every person that is men- tioned by name, there are 10 more that are being left behind. Knowing this, this is my attempt to thank all those without whom this would have beena failure. If you think you deserve a place here and cannot find your name, I hope you will forgive my oversight. Next time we meet, the beer is on me. First I need to thank Valerie Hazan, for her undying support and at- tention, and her most valuable advice throughout. In the four years (and a bit) that I had the privilege to work under her supervision, she always had her door open, and was always willing to solve my problems and read over my drafts. The comments I received in return were as harsh as theyneeded to be, never more, and always helpful. 7 Perception of l2 Spanish and Japanese prominence I would also like to thank Paul Iverson, for his expertise and his take- no-prisoners approach to giving advice, and to Mark Huckvale, for his advice on intensity normalisation strategies. Paul is also largely responsible for my spending a year at UMass Amherst, where professors John Kingston and Kristine Yu took me in and offered a completely different perspective to the things I had been doing, and had yet to do. I have particularly fond memories of the last conversa- tion I had with John before heading back, and I only wish I can express how lucky I feel for having had the opportunity to be in his lab. The students in the Linguistics department also made me feel welcome and challenged, and I cherish the friendships I made while with them. We should go climbing again. In Sophia University I also received the help of professors Arai Takayuki and Kimiyo Nishimura, who not only provided me with a place to work, but assisted in the data collection in ways I did not think would be possible. Thank you also to the people at Universidad Católica, and in particular to Domingo Román for his constant encouragement, his friendship, and his unwavering faith in me. Ucl and shaps (with comma or without) became for me so much more than a place to work, and having to move on is the one part of completing my PhD that makes me sad. Thank you in particular to the members ofthe lab: Sonia Granlund, Michèle Pettinato, Outi Tuomainen, Wafa Alshangiti, and Lou Stringer; and Yasuaki Shinohara, who only realised he could call himself a member as he was leaving ucl to bigger and better things. The rest of the graduate students are the main reason my stay in ucl has been as memorable as it has. A special thank you to Melanie Pinet, Georgina Roth, Albert Lee, Lucy Carroll, Tim Schoof, Cristiane Hsu, Mauricio Figueroa Candia, Kurt Steinmetzger, Emma Brint, Yue Zhang, Jieun Song, Petra Hödl; my housemates Faith Chiu and Gisela Tomé Lourido; and Mark Wibrow, without whom this dissertation would have been significantly uglier (and less fun to write). 8 Acknowledgements My gratitude goes also to my thesis examiners, professors Peter How- ell and Joaquim Llisterri, who helped make the last part of the PhD the most exciting and rewarding of all. They offered me their sincere advice and made significant contributions to the final stages of this little monster. A special mention is also due to those who participated in my admit- tedly tedious tests, without whom no science would have been possible; and to those who so efficiently helped me in collecting data for the latter stages in my research, when data collection is the last thing one wants to do. Thank you to Karina Cerda, Rosa Catalán and Imran Hossain in Santi- ago; Hernán Acuña in Concepción; and Misae Kunitake and Kazuaki Yasuki in Tōkyō. I am in your debt. I am also grateful to the professors who I met while at tufs, and in par- ticular to Shigenobu Kawakami, who hosted me while there, and Takuya Kimura, with whom a productive and rewarding academic collaboration lead eventually into this dissertation. That work would not have been the same without the rest of the members of that team: professors Hirotaka Sen- sui, Atsuko Toyomaru and Miyuki Takasawa. Professor Noriko Nakamura also offered her helpful advice on the teaching of intonation in Japanese and the search for appropriate Japanese words to use. She is also responsi- ble for much of my initial knowledge of the Japanese accent. Many thanks to you all. Thank you also to my family, and friends, who helped me in allthe other ways in which company and support can be helpful. Even in the dis- tance, I never stopped feeling your love. Finally, thank you to Koto Sadamura, my partner in crime and love, for the support, the motivation, and the visions of a brighter future. Not only did you make this possible, but you also made it so much more enjoyable. You are the reason all of this made sense. 9 10 Contents 29 · 1 Introduction 30 · 1.1 Language transfer effects 31 · 1.1.1 Perceptual Assimilation Model 33 · 1.1.2 Speech Learning Model 34 · 1.1.3 Native Language Magnet 35 · 1.1.4 Model comparison 36 · 1.1.5 From segments to suprasegmentals 38 · 1.2 Prosodic models and annotation 39 · 1.3 Lexical prominence 40 · 1.3.1 Spanish 49 · 1.3.2 Japanese 56 · 1.4 Second language acquisition 59 · 1.4.1 Non-native language proficiency 61 · 1.4.2 Measuring proficiency 64 · 1.5 Prior research 64 · 1.5.1 Background 67 · 1.5.2 Findings 68 · 1.6 Research objectives 68 · 1.6.1 A bidirectional approach 69 · 1.6.2 Research
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