title: The Role of Secondary-Stressed and Unstressed-Unreduced Syllables in Word Recognition: Acoustic and Perceptual Studies with Russian Learners of English.
abstract: The importance of secondary-stressed (SS) and unstressed-unreduced (UU) syllable accuracy for spoken word recognition in English is as yet unclear. An acoustic study first investigated Russian learners' of English production of SS and UU syllables. Significant vowel quality and duration reductions in Russian-spoken SS and UU vowels were found, likely due to a transfer of native phonological features. Next, a cross-modal phonological priming technique combined with a lexical decision task assessed the effect of inaccurate SS and UU syllable productions on native American English listeners' speech processing. Inaccurate UU vowels led to significant inhibition of lexical access, while reduced SS vowels revealed less interference. The results have implications for understanding the role of SS and UU syllables for word recognition and English pronunciation instruction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Languages, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Strelnieku iela 4a, Riga, 1010, Latvia. elina.banzina@sseriga.edu.
authors.forename: Elina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Banzina
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University, 116 Oyer Center, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Laura C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Dilley
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Bowling Green State University, 238 Health and Human Services Building, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, USA.
authors.forename: Lynne E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Hewitt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D009820:Ohio; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012426:Russia; D013065:Speech Intelligibility / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: English pronunciation; Russian accent; Secondary stress; Speech intelligibility; Speech processing; Unstressed unreduced syllables; Vowel reduction; Word recognition