Leiden University Student Repository

van de Poll, Maria (2021)

INFLUENCE OF SPANISH STRESS AND INTONATION ON ENGLISH QUESTIONS

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

The teaching of pronunciation is slowly receiving more attention in TESL, yet the teaching of the suprasegmental features of language (stress and intonation) it still scarce. Due to its important role in communication, this project description paper presents an analysis of the effects Castilian Spanish stress and intonation have on English Questions when uttered by Castilian Spanish speakers. Additionally, it suggests Age, Age of Onset of Acquisition and Proficiency to be possible factors influencing successful pronunciation. This proposal is a replica of Valenzuela Farías’ study (2013): “A comparative Analysis of Intonation between Spanish and English speakers in Tag Questions, Wh-Questions, Inverted Questions, and Repetition Questions”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, this study does not have empirical results. The results shown are predictions drawn from existing research applied to the focus of this research. Hypotheses indicate a possible connection between learner’s...Show moreThe teaching of pronunciation is slowly receiving more attention in TESL, yet the teaching of the suprasegmental features of language (stress and intonation) it still scarce. Due to its important role in communication, this project description paper presents an analysis of the effects Castilian Spanish stress and intonation have on English Questions when uttered by Castilian Spanish speakers. Additionally, it suggests Age, Age of Onset of Acquisition and Proficiency to be possible factors influencing successful pronunciation. This proposal is a replica of Valenzuela Farías’ study (2013): “A comparative Analysis of Intonation between Spanish and English speakers in Tag Questions, Wh-Questions, Inverted Questions, and Repetition Questions”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, this study does not have empirical results. The results shown are predictions drawn from existing research applied to the focus of this research. Hypotheses indicate a possible connection between learner’s first and second language (language transfer), in addition to Age, Age of Onset of Acquisition and Proficiency as factors influencing the successfulness of the acquisition of English pronunciation.Show less

L1 transfer – Intonation – Stress – Adult Second Language Learners – Age of Onset of Acquisition - Proficiency

Author

van de Poll, Maria

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Applied Linguistics

Supervisors

González González, P.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en