Date of Award
5-2024
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Styleguide
apa
Degree Name
English: Teaching English as a Second Language: M.A.
Department
English
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Ettien Koffi
Second Advisor
John Madden
Third Advisor
Lisa Loftis
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Epenthesis, Epenthetic Vowel, Salvadoran-Accented English, Acoustic Phonetic Analysis, Acoustic Phonetic Features
Abstract
This study describes the acoustic phonetic features of the epenthetic vowel inserted in sC onset-initially syllables by Salvadoran-accented speakers of English. Numerous studies approach the causes and the environments where epenthesis occurs, and though in most of them authors refer to the epenthetic vowel [ɛ] as the sound inserted to repair the illicit structure, this claim has not been scientifically proven nor discarded. This is the first study to deal with the features of the epenthetic vowel. The results will lead to comprehensive description of the epenthetic vowel. Chapter 1 will provide an overview of the phenomenon as well as the methodology used to conduct the analysis, background information about the participants and the tools to process the data. Chapter 2 will present the results for the F1 and F2 formants, the two correlates that play the biggest role in a speaker’s vowel intelligibility. Chapter 3 will present the results for the F0/pitch formant, the intensity, and the duration correlates. These correlates will help understand how loud and long the epenthetic vowel is in relation to other lexical sounds produced by SAE speakers and other speakers of English. Chapter 4 will introduce the results for the F3 and F4 correlates. These do not play a significant role in speech intelligibility but extracting their values can help develop important views on speech technology applications. Finally, Chapter 5 will present the pedagogical and speech technology implications and applications that can be drawn after a careful analysis of all the information gathered.
Recommended Citation
Lopez, Luis, "The Acoustic Phonetic Features of the Epenthetic Vowel in sC Onset-Initially Syllables by Salvadoran-Accented English Speakers" (2024). Culminating Projects in TESL. 72.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/tesl_etds/72
