Doctoral Dissertation Reasearch: Temporal Measures of Spanish-Accented English

本论文项目试图确定西班牙口音的语音，给它的感觉是'加重'的声学特征。虽然有相当多的资料，语音方面的西班牙口音英语，只有有限的研究已经进行了客观的声学特征。在这项研究中，西班牙语的英语和美国英语的母语者将被记录，语音样本将进行比较的时间声学测量，如元音持续时间，辅音持续时间，和停止语音开始时间。这些测量结果将为西班牙口音英语的时间提供描述性数据。 本研究的第二部分是实验性的。在确定了时间差异之后，研究人员将选择那些在两组说话者中差异最大的特征。这些特征将通过针对西班牙口音说话者的波形编辑进行声学修改，以使其与本地（无口音）说话者的测量值雅阁。然后，对有口音说话者的修改和未修改的语音进行相对口音判断的收听者评级。我们的目的是确定在何种程度上的时间修改，使口音的讲话口音和更像本地人。

This dissertation project attempts to identify the acoustic features of Spanish-accented speech that give it the perception of being 'accented'. While considerable information is available on phonological aspects of Spanish-accented English, only a limited amount of research has been conducted on the objective acoustic features. In this study, Spanish speakers of English and native speakers of American English will be recorded, and speech samples will be compared in terms of temporal acoustic measurements, e.g. vowel duration, consonant duration, and stop voice onset time. These measurements will provide descriptive data for the timing of Spanish-accented English. The second part of the study is experimental. Having identified the temporal differences, the researchers will select those features which differ most consistently across the two groups of speakers. These features will be acoustically modified by waveform editing for the Spanish-accented speakers to bring them into accord with the measurements of the native (unaccented) speakers. The modified and unmodified speech of the accented speakers will then be subjected to listener ratings for relative accent judgments. The aim is to determine the extent to which temporal modification makes accented speech less accented and more native-like.