Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1940 A Phonetic Analysis of the English Spoken by Mexican Children in the Elementary Schools of Arizona. Klonda Lynn Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Lynn, Klonda, "A Phonetic Analysis of the English Spoken by Mexican Children in the Elementary Schools of Arizona." (1940). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7832. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7832 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MANUSCRIPT THESES Unpublished theses submitted for the master’s and doctor’s degrees and deposited in the Louisiana State University Library are available for inspection* Use of any thesis is limited by the rights of the author* Bibliographical references may be noted, but passage^ may not be copied unless the author has given permission# Credit must be given in subsequent written or published work# A library which borrows this thesis for use by its clientele l®t|tideted to make sure that the borrower is aware of the above LOUISIANA. STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY A PHONETIC ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH spoken by Mexican children in THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF ARIZONA A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech *>y Klonda Lynn B.A., North Dakota, 1920. M.A., Boston University, 1920. 1940 UMI Number: DP69210 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation PublisNng UMI DP69210 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ACKN OtLEDQMENTS The need for a phonetic analysis of the English spoken toy the Mexican school children of Arizona became apparent to the writer after several years of work with class-room teachers. Many of their urgent questions had to go unanswered, The writer hopes that the answers to their problems, as set forth in this study, will express her gratitude to these teachers, not only for their assistance in obtaining the recordings necessary for the analysis, tout for their continued interest and eager in­ quiry* It Is Impossible to express proper acknowledgment to all those who have made this study possible. Perhaps It should never have been attempted If it had not been for the encouragement of Dr. Mary A. Hill, head of the depart­ ment of English, State Teachers College, Flagstaff, Arizona, Also, the writer Is under personal obligation to a former student, Mr, Neal Hatoogliatti of Globe, Arizona, for the many hours spent In assisting with the recordings. Finally, a deep debt of gratitude is expressed to Dr. C. M. Wise, head of the department of Speech, Louisiana State University, for his sound counsel and advice, an indebtedness not compensated by this formal recognition* o<JL TABLE OP CONTENTS Page LIST OP TABLES ................................... iv LIST OP ILLU3TRATIONS ..... .................... v ABSTRACT ...................................... vi INTRODUCTION ........................ 2 Chapter I. THE PROBLEM OF MEXICAN-ENGLISH ............ 15 II. THE PHONETIC STRUCTURE OP CASTILIAN-SPANISH. 29 III. THE PHONETIC STRUCTURE OF MEXICAN-SPANISH . 74 IV. ANALYSIS OP THE HEXICAN-ENGLISIi DIALECT . 87 Consonants ........ ........... 87 Vowels ................. 143 Modifications................. 162 Remedial Suggestions ........... 168 CONCLUSION .................................... 189 APPENDICES I. TRANSCRIPTION OF HEXICAN-SPANISH ............ 194 II. TRANSCRIPTIONS OF MEXICAN-ENGLISH .......... 197 III. SAMPLE RECORDING OP MEXICAN-ENGLISH ........ 302 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................... 304 BIOGRAPHY ...................................... 307 111 LIST OP TABLES Table Page 1. Enrollment of* Mexican Pupils in Elementary Schools of Arizona, 1937-58 • * 22 2* Distribution of Mexican and English Children in 19 Elementary Schools . 23 3* Incidence of the (t*V) in the Transcribed Word Lists *•«*••••»••**•*.*»•* 100 4. Incidence of Substitutions for (<^) ♦ . « . * 124 5. Incidence of Substitutions of (t£) for ($) . • 137 6. Incidence of Substitutions of ($) for (#) • • 137 7. Incidence of Substitutions for (^) . • • . * 141 8* Incidence of Substitutions for (£5 ) . • * • • 141 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Locations of Recordings • 5 2. Spanish Vowels 33 3* Spanish Consonants 34 4* General American Consonants ....••••• 92 5# General American Vowels and Diphthongs . 93 6* Aspiration in English 96 7* Non-aspiration In Spanish .......... 97 8. Non-aspiration in English .......... 104 9* Aspiration in Spanish . .......... 104 10* English and Spanish Vowels ...••••*• 146 11. English and Spanish _i Sounds ............ 147 12. English and Spanish js Sounds 150 13. English and Spanish Low Vowels •••••.. 153 14. English and Spanish o Sounds ........ 155 15* English and Spanish u Sounds 156 16. Spanish and English Diphthongs ....... 161 v ABSTRACT Thirty-four per cent of the total elementary school population of Arizona is Spanish-speaking, or Mexican. The age-grade distribution in this state shows that approximately thirty-five per cent of the pupils in the elementary schools are over-age for their grade. The Fima County Survey in­ dicates that a large percentage of this over-ageness is ac­ counted for by the presence of Mexican pupils. The present consensus of opinion is that much of the existing retardation of the Mexican children can be attributed, directly or in­ directly, to language defects. The effort to Americanize and assimilate our foreign- speaking peoples in the Southwest has given us a generation of children of Mexican parentage who are dependent upon the home for the Spanish they speak and upon the school for the English. The child, as a native Spanish speaker, has had time to learn but little of his native tongue before he is faced with the fact that he must, for the purpose of social and economic adjustment, learn a new set of symbols. Fhonetlc substitution is the result. The primary purpose of this study is to make a com­ parative analysis of the phonetic variants of the English language spoken by native Spanish-speaking children in the vi elementary schools of the state of Arizona. The analysis has been made from a collection of one hundred fifty re­ corded examples of the speech of Mexican children enrolled In grades three to eight inclusive. By means of a detailed analysis of the phonetic transcription of this "loaded" material, and by constant reference to and comparison with the Castilian, Mexican-Spanish and English phonetic usage, a study of the substitutions made by the Mexican child In Mexican-Engllsh was made. The discussion of these substitu­ tions and the reasons for their existence forms the substance of this study. General and special remedial suggestions are offered also. The findings of the analysis of the phonetic structure of the Mexlcan-English dialect can be summarized briefly as follows: (1) there is a direct substitution of a Spanish sound for an English sound; (2) there is a difference in the way in which sounds similar in both languages are produced; (3) there Is a confusion of sounds with spelling; (4) there Is insufficient glide between the sounds of connected speech; (5) there is an appreciable shortness characteristic of all vowels of the Mexican-English as compared with the corres­ ponding American vowels; (6) there is an unnatural stressing of the unstressed sounds. On the whole, the Incidence of the variants does not decrease to any noticeable degree with the Increased age and skill of the speaker. Certain of the variant forms seem to persist throughout the school period. vii The factors which contribute to the use of the variant pronunciations of Mexican-EnglI sh are: (1) the use of the native tongue, Mexican-Spanish, from babyhood until entrance Into the American school; (2) the learning of the new symbols of the English language at an early age. This thrusts upon the child an additional conditioning of the speech mechanism to new habits of speech before the old are well established. Three general conclusions may be drawn from the study: (1) there is a need for a more scientific approach toward the teaching of the new set of symbols, based upon an exact knowledge of the phonetic structure of both Spanish and English. (2) there is a need for a course of study, planned for oral English, which takes into account the normal develop­ ment of the language habits of the child. Such a course of study would provide the child with such re-conditioning of the sensory, motor, and auditory