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English lexical stress produced by native (L1) Bengali speakers compared to native (L1) English speakers: an acoustic study

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Abstract

English lexical stress is acoustically related to combination of duration, intensity, fundamental frequency (F0) and vowel quality. Errors in any or all of these correlates could interfere with production of the stress contrast, but it is unknown which correlates are most difficult for L1 Bengali speakers to acquire. This study compares the use of these correlates in the production of English lexical stress contrasts by 10 L1 English and 20 L1 Bengali speakers. The results showed that L1 Bengali speakers produced significantly less native like stress patterns, although they used all four acoustic correlates to distinguish stressed from unstressed syllables. L1 English speakers reduced vowel duration significantly more in the unstressed vowels compared to L1 Bengali speakers and degree of intensity and F0 increase in stressed vowels by L1 English speakers was higher than that by L1 Bengali speakers. There were also significant differences in formant patterns across speaker groups, such that L1 Bengali speakers produced English like vowel reduction in certain unstressed syllables, but in other cases, L1 Bengali speakers had tendency to either not reduce or incorrectly reduce vowels in unstressed syllables. The results suggest that L1 Bengali speakers’ production of English lexical stress contrast is influenced by L1 language experience and L1 phonology.

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Acknowledgments

The read speech data of L1 American English speakers was given by Prof. Alexander L. Francis, Program in Linguistics and Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907. We thank him for his kind support, which helped us to do this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Educational Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

    Shambhu Nath Saha & Shyamal Kumar Das Mandal

Authors
  1. Shambhu Nath Saha
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  2. Shyamal Kumar Das Mandal
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Correspondence to Shambhu Nath Saha.

Appendices

Appendix A

1.1 Detailed information of L1 English speakers

Table 5 represents the detailed personal information of 10 (5 male, 5 female) L1 American English speakers, where seven were from the central Midwest and remaining three were from California, New York, and Louisiana respectively.

Table 5 Detailed personal information of L1 American English speakers
Full size table

Appendix B

2.1 Detailed information of L1 Bengali speakers

Table 6 represents the detailed personal information of 20 (8 male, 12 female) L1 speakers of Standard Colloquial Bengali, who have participated in the present study.

Table 6 Detailed personal information of L1 Bengali speakers
Full size table

Appendix C

3.1 Aesop’s specified recording setup

The speech of L1 and L2 (L1 Bengali) English speakers was recorded by using AESOP’s recording tool kit with AESOP’s specified recording platform. The detailed description of AESOP’s specified recording setup is given below.

  • Recording environment

    Recording can be conducted in quiet room, such as a seminar room, lab, or a class room.

  • Sound card

    Sennheiser PC155 comes equipped with a built-in sound card. No driver installation is required.

  • Recording machine

    Either a desktop PC or a laptop may be used. Connect the headset to the PC or Laptop. The CUHK-SIAT recording tool is compatible with the following operating systems: Windows XP Service Pack 2.

  • Recording tool kit

    The CUHK-SIAT recording tool was developed by Chinese University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology. It was subsequently modified to fit the requirements of research work pursued in the thesis.

  • Audio file format

    Source: Microphone

    Sampling rate: 16 kHz

    Bit rate: 16-bit

    Channel: Mono.

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Saha, S.N., Das Mandal, S.K. English lexical stress produced by native (L1) Bengali speakers compared to native (L1) English speakers: an acoustic study. Int J Speech Technol 19, 827–840 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-016-9373-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-016-9373-1

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