The Production of Mexican Rhotics by Haitian Creole Speakers in Tijuana Mexico: a Sociophonetic Approach

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The Production of Mexican Rhotics by Haitian Creole Speakers in Tijuana Mexico: a Sociophonetic Approach Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 4-18-2019 11:00 AM The production of Mexican rhotics by Haitian Creole speakers in Tijuana Mexico: a sociophonetic approach Natasha A. Swiderski The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Rafat, Yasaman The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Hispanic Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Natasha A. Swiderski 2019 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Modern Languages Commons Recommended Citation Swiderski, Natasha A., "The production of Mexican rhotics by Haitian Creole speakers in Tijuana Mexico: a sociophonetic approach" (2019). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6116. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6116 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This study investigates the production of the Spanish /ɾ-r/ (e.g., <pero> [ˈpɛ.ɾo] ‘but’ vs. <perro> [ˈpɛ.ro] 'dog') contrast by 30 multi-lingual Haitian Creole speakers learning Spanish, living in Tijuana, Mexico. Specifically, it (a) tests the Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995) regarding the ease of acquisition of 'neW sounds' (i.e. the Spanish rhotics), (b) examines the effect of orthography and (c) investigates the role of social factors, namely language attitude and education on the production of the Spanish rhotics. An acoustic analysis of 2396 tokens show that despite Flege's predictions, the [r] and the [ɾ] are difficult for the learners to produce, albeit the latter is easier than the former. Developmental patterns, transfer and target-like production of the /ɾ/ and the /r/ are reported. The results also indicate a novel effect of orthography, where the grapheme <r> and the digraph <rr> trigger an asymmetrical effect in the learners' productions. Moreover, the results presented a trend, where the more educated learners had less difficulty with the production of the /r/. Furthermore, all learners reported a positive attitude towards Spanish, which may explain why there Was not a significant correlation betWeen language attitude and the production of the /ɾ-r/ contrast. The findings make an important contribution to the field of L2 and speech learning because of the various factors that have been considered in the study. Keywords L2 speech learning, socio-phonetics, orthography, language attitudes, Mexican Spanish, Haitian Creole, English, French ii Acknowledgments First, I am very thankful my amazing supervisor, Dr. Yasaman Rafat, for her guidance, positive encouragement and her wonderful patience in the past couple of years. I would also like to thank her for all the great opportunities she has allowed me to be part of, and overall her support. Thank you to my incredible husband who has put up with all of my craziness during this process and providing me with love and encouragement throughout my university career. I am grateful to all of my friends: Kathryn, Celina, Quique, Maria Laura, Luis Miguel and Sebastian (and any I forgot) for their inspiration, understanding, and kindness throughout this process as they go through their own education journeys. Thank you for all of the memories and support. I want to express my gratitude to my family for alWays encouraging me to do my best and pursue my education goals. Moreover, I thank the Hispanic Department at Western University for all of their support and encouragement throughout the past tWo years. Specifically, Dr. Alena Robin, Sylvia Kontra, DaWn Gingerich and Ingrid Timusk for all of their hard work supporting everyone with their various needs. I would like to thank the examiners who took the time to provide me essential and important feedback for this thesis: Dr. Olga Tararova, Dr. Tania Granadillo and Dr. Rafael Montano. Finally thank you all of the wonderful professors I have had over the years through my course at Western University. Furthermore, I Want to say thank you to the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for providing me with opportunity and the funding I needed to complete this project. Finally, I would like to greatly acknowledge and thank all the people Who helped me to complete my research in Mexico who, without their help none of this Would have been possible. iii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. iii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii List of Appendices ............................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Objectives of study .................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Research questions and overvieW of the methodology and findings ...................... 1 1.3 Structure of thesis .................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Chapter summary ..................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................. 7 2 Literature revieW ............................................................................................................. 7 2.1 Phonetic characterization of Spanish, Haitian Creole and French rhotics .............. 7 2.2 Spanish .................................................................................................................... 7 2.3 Haitian Creole .......................................................................................................... 8 2.4 French ...................................................................................................................... 9 2.5 Orthographic description of Spanish, Haitian Creole, and French .......................... 9 2.6 Spanish orthographic system ................................................................................. 10 2.7 Haitian Creole orthographic system ...................................................................... 11 2.8 L2 phonetic and phonological acquisition ............................................................. 16 2.9 The role of orthographic input in L2 speech learning ........................................... 17 2.10 Acquisition of the Spanish rhotics in the L2+ ....................................................... 25 2.11 Language attitudes ................................................................................................. 31 iiii Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 35 3 Hypotheses and methodology ....................................................................................... 35 3.1 Hypotheses ............................................................................................................ 35 3.2 Participants ............................................................................................................ 36 3.3 Tasks ...................................................................................................................... 39 3.4 Stimuli ................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 47 4 Data analysis and results ............................................................................................... 47 4.1 Results ................................................................................................................... 52 4.1.1 Effect of task: [ɾ] in the picture-naming task ............................................. 52 4.1.2 Effect of task: [ɾ] in the reading task ......................................................... 54 4.1.3 Effect of task: [r] in the picture-naming task ............................................. 55 4.1.4 Effect of task: [r] in the reading task ......................................................... 56 4.2 Effect of tasks on combination productions by Haitian Creole learners ............... 57 4.2.1 Picture-naming task: Combination sounds produced by Haitian Creole learners [ɾ] target ....................................................................................... 57 4.2.2 Reading task: Combination sounds produced by Haitian Creole learners
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