Comparing native and non-native competence in Spanish: analysis of a speech sample (2013)

Undergraduates: Rachel Cianfichi, Spanish 376 Class

Faculty Advisor: Patricia Amaral
Department: Romance Languages

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As a part of Spanish 376, Spanish Phonetics and Phonology, research was conducted for an individual project investigating the differences in the native and non-native pronunciation of words from the Spanish language. This research was conducted using an open-source software named Pratt, which allowed for both myself and a native Spanish speaker with a Chilean dialect to record the word ¿escuchar.¿ This word contains different classes of sounds, among which vowels, a voiceless affricate, and a fricative. An acoustic analysis through text grids in Pratt demonstrated clear differences in the native and non-native pronunciations of the word. It also further illustrated common tendencies regarding the pronunciation of different classes of sounds between native and non-native Spanish speakers, highlighting how the phonological rules of English influence non-native pronunciation of words in the Spanish language.