A Comparison of the Sound Systems of English and Spanish

Abstract

I have been comparing foreign languages and English for nine years now and have benefited greatly in the preparation of tests and teaching materials in English, as you may know.* It is a very real pleasure to have this opportunity of comparing English and Spanish as an aid to the teaching of Spanish. Because of time and space considerations I will have to limit myself to some of the problems, leaving others for a longer paper that may appear later. The variety of Spanish treated is Castillian as described by TomAs Navarro TomBs in Manual de pronunciacidn espaiola.1 The variety of English assumed for the students is Standard Mid West American English. In cases of doubt I consulted Kenyon and Knott, A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English.2 My decision to use specific dialects is based on the fact that the student proceeds in that fashion; he goes from his own specific dialect to a specific dialect of the foreign language, usually that of his teacher or teachers. In addition, the comparison of specific dialects can be presented more neatly than a complex of dialects; and adaptations to other dialects are relatively simple if we have the data for them. We know now that not all the sound differences that are heard in a language are of equal importance in communication. The difference between [s] as in eso, casa, osa and [z] as in desde, mismo, isla is clearly audible to us, and we can describe it accurately, but this difference is never used in Spanish to distinguish any two words. Desde with [z] and desde with [s] are one and the same word in Spanish. In English, on the other hand, the very same difference between [s] and [z] is constantly used to distinguish words like zip and sip, eyes and ice, racing and raising. In English we call that difference phonemic. A phonemic difference is one that can operate as the only distinction between two words in a language. In Spanish, on the other hand, we will call that difference sub-phonemic because it cannot of itself distinguish any two words. Phonemic differences are more important in communication than subphonemic differences. We know now that a speaker of one language tends to transfer the entire system of his language to the foreign language; the speaker of English tends to transfer the system of English to Spanish. He tends to transfer his sound system, including the phonemes, the positional variants of the phonemes, and the restrictions on distribution. He tends to transfer his syllable patterns, his word patterns, and his intonation patterns, as well, Because the student transfers the habits of his English system to Spanish there will be a problem when the sound systems of English and Spanish differ. Sometimes the difference will be phonemic, with the result that the student may say a word he does not intend to say, or he may hear a word that was not spoken to him. Other times the difference will be sub-phonemic, so that the distortion results in a foreign effect but not in a different word. I assume as a matter of course that the