INGL 3227

What is Phonotactics?

Applied English Phonology by Mehmet Yavas (2006:236), one of the resources that I have used as supplementary material for this course, defines phonotactics as “A set of constraints of the possible sequences of phonemes within a syllable or word.”

Structural Factors in Second Language Phonology
When learning pronunciation of words in North American English (hereafter NAE), non-native speakers of English are often influenced by the sound patterns of their native languages. Linguists have frequently used the terms “interference,” “transfer,” and “interlanguage” to describe the influence of native languages over the target patterns. Among non-linguists, we often hear words such as “contamination,” “barbarisms,” and “bad English.” This latter set of words is problematic for a number of reasons. One is that it implies that there is something to be questioned about the intelligence or intentions of the learner, but as we have shown in class that is certainly not the case. Another problem with these perjorative terms is they provide little understanding of what is happening phonetically and phonologically.

The “accent” which learners often have can be said to originate in a mismatch between the learner’s native language (L1) and the target language (L2). For our purposes we will imagine the L2 to be NAE.

Mismatches between Spanish and English can take many forms. One of the common situations is the lack of a targeted sound in the speaker’s L1. This means that the speaker probably cannot pull from his or her established database of phonemes.

Especially problematic for many learners of Spanish may be the phonemes: /v, Greek theta, d with tilted back stem and cross-bar, x, d-yogh ligature, t + esh. This is because many dialects of Spanish do not have these. What is likely to happen when speakers target these sounds? As explained by Yavas (180-181), many speakers (especially monolinguals) will target those sounds that are closest in their own L1 inventories. As we have seen in class this means that a Spanish speaker’s pronunciation of the lexical items “chair” and “share” may be the same. One of the interesting things about variation is Spanish is that the phonemic values of vowels tend to be rather consistent across varieties (e.g., regional varieties in Spain and varieties in Latin America), while there is substantial variation in consonants (see Yavas 180).

Why might this be a problem? It is a problem because the initial consonants in these words contrast in standard forms of NAE.

Yavas cites these other examples:

Which of them do you think might be common among Puerto Rican speakers of Spanish who are learning English as their L2?

/Greek theta/ becomes [t/s] (e.g., thin, tin become [tIn], or [sIn])
/d with tilted back stem and cross-bar/ becomes [d/z/] (e.g., they / day become [de])
/v/ becomes [b] (e.g., vowel, bowel becomes [baul])
/z/ becomes [s] (e.g., zeal, seal, become [sil])
/esh/ becomes [t + esh] (e.g., shop, chop become [t + esh script a p])

We must also remember that the detection of an “accent” is not always due to a complete lack of the target phoneme; instead it can be a result of phonetic differences between identically defined targets and native sounds. One such is example is the final /l/ in the word animal; pronounced as a dark l in NAE, native speakers of Spanish are likely to pronounce it with a clear l.

What additional phonenemes have we discovered are problematic for L1 Spanish learners of NAE? What examples of these challenges can you provide?