Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

A Comparison of the Pronunciation of the Phonemes B and D by a Native Spanish Speaker and a Beginner-Level Spanish Speaker

Richardson Ballroom (DIGS)

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the difference in linguistic characteristics between the pronunciation of a native speaker of Spanish and someone who has no experience with the language. Particularly, I focused on the phonemes B and D. I chose these two phonemes because, in Spanish, there are two ways B and D can be pronounced depending on the preceding sound in the word, and this will add to my analysis. You can have a B or D that is categorized as Occlusive or a B or D categorized as Approximate. My research question was: How will the pronunciation of the phonemes B and D change between a native speaker of the language and someone who has never learned Spanish at all? My hypothesis was that there would be a clear and measurable difference in the sounds produced when a native speaker used those phonemes as compared with a beginner. To measure this difference, I used a computer program called Praat to analyze the shapes and lengths of the sounds produced by the different speakers. My findings were that the shapes and lengths of the sounds change significantly between the two speakers.