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Reading aloud in two languages

The interplay of syntax and prosody
  • Eva M. Fernández
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Research in Second Language Processing and Parsing
This chapter is in the book Research in Second Language Processing and Parsing

Abstract

This paper examines bilingual speech production and constitutes part of an investigation designed to address two separate but interconnected questions. First, do different aspects of prosody relate differently to different syntactic categories? Second, do syntax-prosody correspondences differ between the two languages of a bilingual, and is this modulated by language history? Participants were native speakers of Spanish who were also early acquirers of English, exposed to the language from birth or from between 4 and 6 years of age. They read aloud translation-equivalent passages in English and Spanish. Acoustic analyses of the recorded speech examined phrasing (as indexed in pause durations between words) at key syntactic boundaries throughout the passage. The data demonstrate that early acquirers of English have similar phrasing preferences in both English and Spanish, based on syntactic boundaries. However, reading in Spanish is more disfluent, particularly for participants with less formal exposure to the language.

Abstract

This paper examines bilingual speech production and constitutes part of an investigation designed to address two separate but interconnected questions. First, do different aspects of prosody relate differently to different syntactic categories? Second, do syntax-prosody correspondences differ between the two languages of a bilingual, and is this modulated by language history? Participants were native speakers of Spanish who were also early acquirers of English, exposed to the language from birth or from between 4 and 6 years of age. They read aloud translation-equivalent passages in English and Spanish. Acoustic analyses of the recorded speech examined phrasing (as indexed in pause durations between words) at key syntactic boundaries throughout the passage. The data demonstrate that early acquirers of English have similar phrasing preferences in both English and Spanish, based on syntactic boundaries. However, reading in Spanish is more disfluent, particularly for participants with less formal exposure to the language.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Part I. Introduction
  5. Second language processing and parsing 3
  6. Part II. Relative clauses and wh -movement
  7. Relative clause attachment preferences of Turkish L2 speakers of English 27
  8. Evidence of syntactic constraints in the processing of wh -movement 65
  9. Constraints on L2 learners’ processing of wh-dependencies 87
  10. Part III. Gender and number
  11. The effects of linear distance and working memory on the processing of gender agreement in Spanish 113
  12. Feature assembly in early stages of L2 acquisition 135
  13. Part IV. Subjects and objects
  14. Second language processing in Japanese scrambled sentences 159
  15. Second language gap processing of Japanese scrambling under a Simpler Syntax account 177
  16. The processing of subject-object ambiguities by English and Dutch L2 learners of German 207
  17. Connections between processing, production and placement 231
  18. Part V. Phonology and lexicon
  19. The exploitation of fine phonetic detail in the processing of L2 French 259
  20. Translation ambiguity 281
  21. Part VI. Prosody and context
  22. Reading aloud in two languages 297
  23. Near-nativelike processing of contrastive focus in L2 French 321
  24. Author index 345
  25. Subject index 349
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.53.13fer

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Part I. Introduction
  5. Second language processing and parsing 3
  6. Part II. Relative clauses and wh -movement
  7. Relative clause attachment preferences of Turkish L2 speakers of English 27
  8. Evidence of syntactic constraints in the processing of wh -movement 65
  9. Constraints on L2 learners’ processing of wh-dependencies 87
  10. Part III. Gender and number
  11. The effects of linear distance and working memory on the processing of gender agreement in Spanish 113
  12. Feature assembly in early stages of L2 acquisition 135
  13. Part IV. Subjects and objects
  14. Second language processing in Japanese scrambled sentences 159
  15. Second language gap processing of Japanese scrambling under a Simpler Syntax account 177
  16. The processing of subject-object ambiguities by English and Dutch L2 learners of German 207
  17. Connections between processing, production and placement 231
  18. Part V. Phonology and lexicon
  19. The exploitation of fine phonetic detail in the processing of L2 French 259
  20. Translation ambiguity 281
  21. Part VI. Prosody and context
  22. Reading aloud in two languages 297
  23. Near-nativelike processing of contrastive focus in L2 French 321
  24. Author index 345
  25. Subject index 349
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