Acquisition de la prosodie en langue seconde: l'étude de la perception de l'accent lexical sur la base d'expériences comportementales et électrophysiologiques

Responsible:  Sandra Schwab
Duration of the project: 2014-2017

This research deals with the acquisition of second language prosody, more specifically with the discrimination of stress contrasts in a second language (L2). Our first aim was to examine to what extent a 4-hour training on Spanish accentual contrasts allows French- and German-speaking listeners to improve their perception of Spanish lexical stress. The second aim was to determine the effect of the training method (explicit/implicit) on the learning progression. Finally, our third goal was to determine to what extent the learners' ability to discriminate L2 stress contrasts, as well as their improvement after training are related to electrophysiological correlates.

1. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2017). Intonation and talker variability in the discrimination of Spanish lexical stress contrasts by Spanish, German and French listeners. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 142 (4), 2419–2429. http://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.5008849?aemail=author
2. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2018). Explicit and implicit training methods for the learning of stress contrasts in Spanish. In Lahoz-Bengoechea, J. M., Pérez Ramón, R., & Villa Villa, J. (Eds.), Subsidia. Tools and resources for speech sciences. Malaga: Universidad de Malaga.
3. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2019). Music and L2 prosody: the role of musical aptitude on the discrimination of stress contrasts in Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, August 5-9 2019.
4. Schwab, S., Theodore, R. & Dellwo, V. (2019). The effect of training in the learning of Spanish stress contrasts by French, German and English-speaking listeners. L2 Pronunciation Research Workshop: Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice, Barcelona, 6-7 June 2019.
5. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2017). The long-term effect of training in the learning of Spanish stress contrasts by French-speaking listeners. Workshop Second Language Prosody, Bangor, November, 9-10, 2017.
6. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2017). The role of intonation in the perception of lexical stress in Spanish, 21. Deutscher Hispanistentag, Session III-2: Variación fónica en el español contemporáneo, Munich, Germany, March, 31- April 1, 2017.
7. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2016). The effect of the L2 competence on the perception of Spanish lexical stress by German speakers. New Sounds 2016, Aarhus, Denmark, June, 10-12, 2016,
8. Schwab, S. & Dellwo, V. (2016). Explicit versus implicit training methods in the learning of Spanish accentual contrasts by French- and German-speaking listeners. Second Language Prosody Workshop, Graz, Austria, November, 18-19, 2016.

Keywords (max 5): L2 prosody acquisition, training, stress, contrasts, event-related potentials

 Funding source(s): SNF