Production of Acoustic Correlates of Stress by L2 Spanish-Speaking Immigrants to Spain

Little work has examined the L2 acquisition of Spanish stress, and especially the production of its acoustic correlates, and the work that has is largely limited to inexperienced learners. This study examines the production of stress by L1 English/L2 Spanish speakers who are highly experienced with their L2, having lived much of their adult lives as immigrants in Spain. Data were collected from the reading of a short story, an extended reading with a plot was provided so that participants would not be focused on their pronunciation, thus producing speech closer to spontaneous speech while still allowing for control over what they produced. Intensity, duration, pitch and deaccenting were examined and the results from the L2 learners were compared to a control group of native speakers from Spain who performed the same task. While only one L2 learner’s stress production could be classified as completely native-like, as a group, their stress production approximated native speaker norms to a greater degree than has been found for most other aspects of L2 Spanish pronunciation in previous research. Nonetheless, L2 learners seemed to transfer duration patterns from their L1 into their L2 Spanish and also deaccented stressed syllables nearly twice as often as native speakers.