Coarticulatory effects of lateral tongue bracing in first and second language English speakers

Abstract

This study uses electromagnetic articulometry (EMA) to examine the coarticulatory effects of tongue bracing in L1 and L2 English speakers. The tongue is hydrostatic, so we brace it against our teeth for added control, and this bracing is an important part of pronunciation. The amount of bracing may differ across languages (and may be part of one’s articulatory setting), so understanding these differences could be a key to L2 pronunciation learning. Although lingual coarticulation has been examined using acoustics and midsagittal views of the vocal tract, not much focus has been placed on the coronal view. We collected EMA point-tracking data from two native speakers of North American English and looked at the movement of a lateral tongue marker. As stimuli, we choose the nursery rhyme “Mary had a Little Lamb” because of the variation in vowels, and also the /l/ and /r/ phonemes, which are absent in Japanese. Initial results show differences between vowels that occur next to /l/ and those that occur next to /r/ and stops. Results will also be presented for Japanese speakers of both their L1 (Japanese) and L2 English. If we find crosslinguistic differences in bracing, this fact will be important for pedagogical purposes.