L2 rhythm acquisition and rhythmic transfer in Galician learners of English: A pilot study

Abstract

Languages have been classified with regard to their rhythm into stress-timed, syllable-timed and mora-timed languages. The aim of this pilot study is to verify the existence of rhythmic transfer from a syllable-timed language, Galician (L1), to the English spoken by Galician learners (L2), as well as to determine whether the proficiency level in the L2 may have an effect on the degree of rhythmic transfer observed. Two groups of six Galician learners of English and two groups of six native speakers of Galician and Southern British English were recorded and analyzed. Rhythm metrics (ΔC, %V, ΔV, CrPVI, and VnPVI) were calculated for all four groups so as to have objective measures to compare the rhythm of the source language (Galician), the rhythm of the target language (English), and the rhythm of the learner language at different proficiency levels. The data show that there is rhythmic transfer between Galician and English L2, and that the degree of transfer decreases as the proficiency level in the L2 increases.