Production orale de l’accent lexical espagnol par les francophones : une étude expérimentale

Abstract

This paper focuses on second language acquisition. I am particularly interested in the way French learners acquire Spanish prosody and more precisely lexical stress. French and Spanish display major differences when it comes to lexical stress. French is said to be a fixed-stress language with primary stress systematically falling on the last syllable of phonological phrases (Di Cristo, 1981) whereas Spanish is considered as a free-stress language with stress potentially falling on any of the last four syllables of a word (Quilis, 1993). It has been shown that the mother tongue of a learner strongly influences the production of segmental and suprasegmental components in the targeted foreign language (Rasier & Hiligsmann, 2007; Wieden, 1993). Various researchers observed and documented a strong tendency for French learners to overuse oxytonic stress in Spanish (Iruela, 2004; Gil, 2007). Thus, taking into account the specific prosodic characteristics of both languages, I developed an experimental procedure so as to test and evaluate the influence of the mother tongue on the production of Spanish lexical stress by French learners. The sample consisted of the recordings of 24 French speakers and 8 Spanish speakers representing the control group. I analysed 3840 productions which correspond to the recordings of 32 different subjects confronted with 40 stimuli under three specific conditions. The subjects carried out a production test that consisted in pronouncing the stimuli triggered by pictures that were introduced at the end of a sentence they had to read. Each picture represents a word. The subjects do not see the words that they are asked to pronounce in order to avoid any interference that might result from reading the written words. First, words are pronounced in isolation, and then they are inserted at the end of a sentence and pronounced in context (in connected speech). For instance, when the subjects are exposed to the picture of a guitar, they pronounce the word « guitarra » in isolation, without using any article. Then they read the sentence in which the picture was inserted, the target words being placed at the end of each of those sentences and with the appropriate intonation pattern. (For instance: ¿José toca la guitarra?). A single sentence is presented twice, first as a statement (with a falling intonation contour) and then as a question (with a rising intonation contour). I put forward 8 hypotheses: 1) General hypothesis: The Mother Tongue Effect: I assume that the productions of French learners will be influenced by their mother tongue and that lexical stress will shift to the last syllable. 2) The Proficiency Hypothesis: I assume that most proficient learners will make fewer errors. The subjects are split into three groups depending on their linguistic competence and according to the CEFRL (Common European Framework for Languages, A, B and C). 3) Words in isolation vs. words in context: I suppose that the production of lexical stress will be more challenging for speakers in a sentence than in isolation. 4) The impact of intonation patterns: I assume that the rising intonation contour plays an important part in the accurate production of lexical stress: it might be made more difficult for learners to produce lexical stress with a rising contour than with a falling one. 5) Does the number of syllables have an impact? The longer the word, the more difficult it might be for speakers to assign stress. The stimuli contain two or three syllables (i.e. « a-zul » or « ca-mi-sa »). 6) What is the effect of the position of stress? Two hypotheses are put forward here: first, I assume that the speakers’ productions will be better in paroxytonic words (words stressed on the penultimate syllable as in « moto ») since these words are very frequently used in Spanish. Second, I assume that stress positions that are similar in both languages (i.e. oxytonic stress in « fran-‘cès ») can be the cause of more difficulty. 7) What is the effect of stress patterns? This factor is a combination of both the impact of the number of syllables and that of stress position. I took into account this factor to check if both hypotheses lead to different effects on learners’ productions. 8) What is the effect of lexical transparency? I assume that the effect of phonetic similarity between Spanish and French words will be significant. Indeed, segmental similarities between French and Spanish words can be a source of difficulty. It is expected that the production of lexical stress will be more challenging for « transparent words » (i.e. words that are phonetically close such as « me’lón / melon », « ’taxi / taxi ») than for « opaque words » (with no phonetic similarities such as « a’zul / bleu », « re’loj / montre », « ’pájaro / oiseau »). The results confirmed the effect of the proficiency factor on the production of lexical stress and revealed the existence of several stages in the development of the learners’ interlanguage and in their acquisition of prosody. The acquisition of stress patterns seems to be gradual: first learners acquire paroxytonic stress, then they acquire oxytonic stress and finally they acquire proparoxytonic stress. Stress position seems to have a strong effect on the productions of lexical stress. The best productions were observed in paroxytonic words. This study highlights the existence of facilitating contexts for the acquisition of stress patterns. The students’ productions were better in interrogative sentences marked by a rising intonation contour than in isolated words. Furthermore, similarities between the languages in transparent words and oxytonic words were linked to weaker performances.

Keywords

• production
• lexical stress
• Spanish
• French
• Second Language Acquisition