In:
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 36, No. 2 ( 2014-06), p. 257-281
Abstract:
A remarkable example of Spanish-Italian contact is the Spanish variety spoken in Buenos Aires (Porteño), which is said to be prosodically “Italianized” due to migration-induced contact. The change in Porteño prosody has been interpreted as a result of transfer from the first language (L1) that occurred when Italian immigrants learned Spanish as a second language (L2; McMahon, 2004). This article aims to examine if and to what extent prosodic features that are typical of Italian show up in Porteño and in L2 Castilian Spanish produced by Italian native speakers. Specifically, we investigated speech rhythm and the realization of yes-no questions in Porteño and L2 Castilian Spanish in comparison to Italian and L1 Castilian Spanish. We hypothesized that Italian, Porteño, and L2 Castilian Spanish would exhibit similar rhythm patterns, showing high values for the percentage of vocalic material, the variation coefficient of vocalic intervals, and the speech-rate-normalized pairwise variability index for vowels as well as high frequencies of rising prenuclear accents, with the peak located at the end of the syllable (L+H*) and falling final contours in yes-no questions, in contrast to Castilian Spanish. The results confirm our predictions for speech rhythm but not entirely for the intonation of yes-no questions.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0272-2631
,
1470-1545
DOI:
10.1017/S0272263113000740
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
2014
detail.hit.zdb_id:
435303-1
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2002746-1
SSG:
7,11
SSG:
5,3
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