Analysis of Vowels Produced by Spanish and English Speakers
Κ. Ν. Stevens, Mary M. Klatt · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1969
Measurements of the formant frequencies were made throughout the stressed vowels in a series of monosyllabic and bisyllabic words produced by several Spanish and American-English speakers and the data were displayed in the form of F1−F2 contours. The Spanish speakers generated both Spanish words and English words, whereas the American speakers produced only the English words. Differences between Spanish and English vowels occur not only in target formant frequencies but also in the shape of the F1−F2 contour, i.e., in the dynamics of the vowel. A panel of listeners rated the degree of accent on the vowels for each of the English words. The listener judgments for a given vowel appear to be based on the target formant frequencies, and on the shape and duration of the F1−F2 contour. Implications of the results with regard to the development of automated displays for assisting in second-language learning are discussed. [This work was sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense, Air Force Office of Scientific Research under contract.]