Nucleus placement in spanish as L1 and english as L2: comparative study of reading aloud of argentinean university students

Authors

Keywords:

nuclear accent, pragmatics, Spanish L1, English L2, reading aloud

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present some results which have been obtained through a comparative study of two previous pieces of research carried out at Facultad de Lenguas (FADEL), Universidad Nacional del Comahue (UNCo). Both studies analysed where the nuclear accent is placed in university students’ oral production, both in Spanish (L1) and English (L2). The participants were students of the English Translator and English Teacher Training Courses. As regards the first stage of the research, the subjects of study were elementary students of the target language (L2), whereas in the second phase, the participants were advanced students of English. The corpus was obtained from the students’ reading of a story in English as well as from the reading of its translation into Spanish. Different cases of deaccented and/or reaccented material of given information in final position in the intonational phrase have been examined as a phenomenon connecting phonology and pragmatics.

The results suggest that the theoretical and practical instruction of the accentual patterns of the target language affects the students’ choice of nuclear accent when reading aloud, both in Spanish (L1) and English (L2).

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Published

29-03-2021

How to Cite

Lagos, I. R., Blázquez, B. A., & Arana, V. F. (2021). Nucleus placement in spanish as L1 and english as L2: comparative study of reading aloud of argentinean university students. Anales De Lingüística, (5), 61–86. Retrieved from https://revistas.uncu.edu.ar/ojs/index.php/analeslinguistica/article/view/4589