Phonetic Influences Research Articles

Botanical Roots and Word Origins: A Systematic Reconstruction of Alor Plant Name Etymologies

This research provides a systematic reconstruction of nine botanical names from the Papuan languages spoken on Alor Island. Although genealogical links among the Papuan Timor–Alor–Pantar languages have been previously investigated, linguistic micro-studies of the hypothesized ‘shared’ ancestor languages within languages of the individual islands remain sparse. This study has three main aims: Firstly, to provide etymological reconstructions of Alor–Pantar Papuan words on a micro-level, focusing on Alor Island and specifically on plant names, which represent a cornerstone of Alor culture and history. Adopting the Comparative Method comparing cognates of 15 local languages, this research postulates historical phonetic shifts and language alignment phenomena and proposes proto-forms of the words in proto-Alor. Secondly, to shed light on possible prehistoric language contact and settlement patterns. A key finding suggests that the initial consonantal shifts *b > b > f > p in the languages is a probable loanword feature originating from the Austronesians. The geographical spread could indicate the influence of external trade and/or settlement patterns within the Papuan populations. Lastly, to provide a backbone for future etymological research on Papuan languages in Alor (and beyond) by mapping out aspects of language origins and phonetic influences and establish features of the shared proto-language(s).

The Influence of Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue on Oral English in Senior High Schools and Its Countermeasures

This study discusses the phenomenon of negative transfer of mother tongue, which is common in oral English learning in senior high schools. The research topic is divided into two parts: the influence of negative transfer of the mother tongue and its countermeasures, covering vocabulary misuse, phonetic influence and corresponding teaching strategies. Through literature analysis and theoretical comparison, the phenomenon of rigid mother tongue order and mechanical Chinglish is deeply discussed, and some countermeasures are put forward to solve the problem of negative transfer of mother tongue, such as contextualization practice, in-depth understanding of language characteristics and structure, application of cooperation and correction strategies, peer discussion and cooperative activities. The results show that these strategies can effectively reduce the negative impact of the mother tongue on oral English learning. The research conclusion emphasizes that in order to overcome the challenge of negative transfer of mother tongue, diversified and practical teaching methods should be adopted, emphasizing practical communication and cultural integration, aiming at cultivating students' all-round English application ability and cross-cultural communication ability.

Echoes of L1 Syllable Structure in L2 Phoneme Recognition.

Learning to move from auditory signals to phonemic categories is a crucial component of first, second, and multilingual language acquisition. In L1 and simultaneous multilingual acquisition, learners build up phonological knowledge to structure their perception within a language. For sequential multilinguals, this knowledge may support or interfere with acquiring language-specific representations for a new phonemic categorization system. Syllable structure is a part of this phonological knowledge, and language-specific syllabification preferences influence language acquisition, including early word segmentation. As a result, we expect to see language-specific syllable structure influencing speech perception as well. Initial evidence of an effect appears in Ali et al. (2011), who argued that cross-linguistic differences in McGurk fusion within a syllable reflected listeners’ language-specific syllabification preferences. Building on a framework from Cho and McQueen (2006), we argue that this could reflect the Phonological-Superiority Hypothesis (differences in L1 syllabification preferences make some syllabic positions harder to classify than others) or the Phonetic-Superiority Hypothesis (the acoustic qualities of speech sounds in some positions make it difficult to perceive unfamiliar sounds). However, their design does not distinguish between these two hypotheses. The current research study extends the work of Ali et al. (2011) by testing Japanese, and adding audio-only and congruent audio-visual stimuli to test the effects of syllabification preferences beyond just McGurk fusion. Eighteen native English speakers and 18 native Japanese speakers were asked to transcribe nonsense words in an artificial language. English allows stop consonants in syllable codas while Japanese heavily restricts them, but both groups showed similar patterns of McGurk fusion in stop codas. This is inconsistent with the Phonological-Superiority Hypothesis. However, when visual information was added, the phonetic influences on transcription accuracy largely disappeared. This is inconsistent with the Phonetic-Superiority Hypothesis. We argue from these results that neither acoustic informativity nor interference of a listener’s phonological knowledge is superior, and sketch a cognitively inspired rational cue integration framework as a third hypothesis to explain how L1 phonological knowledge affects L2 perception.

Lexical and Phonetic Influences on the Phonolexical Encoding of Difficult Second-Language Contrasts: Insights From Nonword Rejection.

Establishing phonologically robust lexical representations in a second language (L2) is challenging, and even more so for words containing phones in phonological contrasts that are not part of the native language. This study presents a series of additional analyses of lexical decision data assessing the phonolexical encoding of English /ε/ and /æ/ by German learners of English (/æ/ does not exist in German) in order to examine the influence of lexical frequency, phonological neighborhood density and the acoustics of the particular vowels on learners’ ability to reject nonwords differing from real words in the confusable L2 phones only (e.g., *l[æ]mon, *dr[ε]gon). Results showed that both the lexical properties of the target items and the acoustics of the critical vowels affected nonword rejection, albeit differently for items with /æ/ → [ε] and /ε/ → [æ] mispronunciations: For the former, lower lexical frequencies and higher neighborhood densities led to more accurate performance. For the latter, it was only the acoustics of the vowel (i.e., how distinctly [æ]-like the mispronunciation was) that had a significant impact on learners’ accuracy. This suggests that the encoding of /ε/ and /æ/ may not only be asymmetric in that /ε/ is generally more robustly represented in the lexicon than /æ/, as previously reported, but also in the way in which this encoding takes place. Mainly, the encoding of /æ/ appears to be more dependent on the characteristics of the L2 vocabulary and on one’s experience with the L2 than that of its more dominant counterpart (/ε/).

The acoustic realization of language-specific phonological categories despite dynamic cross-linguistic influence in bilingual and trilingual speech.

The present study examines the acoustic realization of the English, Japanese, and Spanish /k/ in the productions of two groups of English-Japanese bilinguals [first language (L1) English-second language (L2) Japanese and L1 Japanese-L2 English] and one trilingual group [L1 Spanish-L2 English-third language (L3) Japanese]. With the analysis of voice onset time (VOT) as a proxy for the degree of cross-linguistic influence in each language, this experiment compares the production patterns of L2 and L3 learners of Japanese and explores the effects of language mode and cognate status on the speech patterns in each of the languages of these bilingual and trilingual individuals. By manipulating the degree of activation of the target and non-target language(s) with the use of cognates and non-cognates in monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual experimental sessions, this study investigates static as well as transient phonetic influence. Even though these bilingual and trilingual speakers produce language-specific VOT patterns for each language, the acoustic analyses also reveal evidence of phonetic convergence as a result of language mode and cognate status. These results show that trilingual speakers are able to maintain language-specific phonological categories in their L1, L2, and L3, overcoming long-term (static) traces of one language influencing the other, despite evidence of short-term (dynamic) cross-linguistic influence.

Dynamic spectral characteristics of defective sounds pronunciation in students with minimal dysarthric disorders

The article is devoted to the analysis of the spectrographic characteristics of defective sounds pronunciation in children with minimal dysarthric disorders (mild dysarthria). These characteristics were obtained in the process of an experimental-phonetic study. It involved the study of the nature of changes that occur during the transition from one sound to another and also during the pronunciation of a single sound. The article presents the results of the experiment carried out on the basis of a qualitative analysis of dynamic spectrograms of syllables; describes the most permanent signs characterizing the defective sounds pronunciation in syllables of various structures (open, closed). The nature of the mutual influences of sounds in various structures of syllables is revealed. Comparative data were obtained for the acoustic (formant) proximity of various variants of defective pronunciation to the sound standard in children with minimal dysarthric disorders. The contextual phonetic influences at the level of syllables are determined, taking into account the acoustic characteristics of sounds and their defective variants.

Short-Term Sources of Cross-Linguistic Phonetic Influence: Examining the Role of Linguistic Environment

While previous research has shown that bilinguals are able to effectively maintain two sets of phonetic norms, these two phonetic systems experience varying degrees of cross-linguistic influence, driven by both long-term (e.g., proficiency, immersion) and short-term (e.g., bilingual language contexts, code-switching, sociolinguistic) factors. This study examines the potential for linguistic environment, or the language norms of the broader community in which an interaction takes place, to serve as a source of short-term cross-linguistic phonetic influence. To investigate the role of linguistic environment, late bilinguals (L1 English—L2 Spanish) produced Spanish utterances in two sessions that differed in their linguistic environments: an English-dominant linguistic environment (Indiana, USA) and a Spanish-dominant linguistic environment (Madrid, Spain). Productions were analyzed at the fine-grained acoustic level, through an acoustic analysis of voice onset time, as well as more holistically through native speaker global accent ratings. Results showed that linguistic environment did not significantly impact either measure of phonetic production, regardless of a speaker’s second language proficiency. These results, in conjunction with previous results on long- and short-term sources of phonetic influence, suggest a possible primacy of the immediate context of an interaction, rather than broader community norms, in determining language mode and cross-linguistic influence.

Asymmetrical cross-language phonetic interaction

AbstractTwo acoustic studies were carried out with L1 Polish learners of English. One study examined L1 phonetic drift, comparing learners of L2 English who were undergoing intensive L2 phonetic training with quasi-monolingual Polish speakers. The other study looked at L2 acquisition, comparing learners at two different levels of proficiency. Unlike most previous studies of Polish-English bilinguals, VOT data of both voiced and voiceless consonants were analyzed. In both experiments, an asymmetry was observed by which voiced stops were more susceptible to cross-language phonetic influence (CLI) than voiceless stops. These results build on evidence of a similar asymmetry observed in a number of other L1–L2 pairings. Predictions of competing phonological models are evaluated with regard to equivalence classification and phonetic CLI. It is shown that both traditional approaches to the phonological representation of voice contrasts fail to predict the observed asymmetry. An alternative theory, which predicts the asymmetry, is discussed.

Native phonological and phonetic influences in perceptual assimilation of monosyllabic Thai lexical tones by Mandarin and Vietnamese listeners

A cross tone-language perceptual assimilation study investigated native categorisations and goodness ratings of non-native Thai tones by Thai-naive listeners differing in their native tone systems: Mandarin, Northern Vietnamese and Southern Vietnamese. We derived hypotheses from the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM: Best, 1995), which considers both native phonological and phonetic influences on perceptual assimilation of non-native speech contrasts. Mandarin listeners reliably categorised the Thai mid level tone to their single native level tone category, reflecting a native phonological effect, but they also showed high residual phonetic sensitivity to differences between the non-native tone and the native tone it was assimilated to, indicated by low category-goodness ratings. Native phonological and phonetic differences in tones of the two Vietnamese dialects also affected perceptual assimilation of the Thai high level and rising tones. In addition, categorisation responses were faster overall for Categorised than Uncategorised assimilations, revealing the processing cost of perceptual uncertainty due to phonological competition among and/or phonetic discrepancies from multiple native categories. This indicates, furthermore, a more focused and thus stronger native phonological contribution for Categorised than Uncategorised assimilations. PAM principles thus extend to non-native tone assimilations and indicate the importance of both native phonological and phonetic contributions to non-native speech perception.

Vārds. Nozīme. Vārdnīca. Radioklausītajs uztraucas

Latvian Radio offers an exchange of opinions and discussions on various subjects. Channel 1 has a show “Kā labāk dzīvot” (‘How to live better’), which among other issues addresses the use of Latvian. This paper is based on the questions covered in 15 broadcasts of the years 2017–2019. What are the listeners worried about? Usually, it is the question of whether the word or phrase is wrong. Does it correspond to the norms and conventions, can it be found in the dictionaries and how it is defined and explained. There is often a clash of opinions on the use between people of different generations. Many questions relate to grammar norms, their application and explanation. These are issues of declining of proper names, use of singular and plural, and gender. There is much uncertainty about the use of lexis often governed by rigid and conservative views. There seems to be more unanimity on issues of style. The impact of English and separate English loans attract numerous questions. English affects various levels of Latvian today. The paper views phonetic, morphological, lexical, phraseological, and syntactic influence. Lexical impact of English is the one felt most: nonce words, loans, translation loans, idioms can be met in both translated and original texts. A semantic broadening of many Latvian terms under the influence of English is widespread, often without any need and additional stylistic value. Borrowed synonyms for Latvian words are in no way detrimental, but they should not oust Latvian words. Many listeners enjoy the opportunity of gaining knowledge on the use of Latvian and thus improving their language competence. We cannot and should not try to control the development of the language, but every speaker can contribute to its perfection, enrichment, and innovation.

An acoustic comparison of German tense and lax vowels produced by German native speakers and Mandarin Chinese learners.

This study analyzed the durational and spectral differences and their interaction in the production of seven German tense-lax vowel pairs between 30 German native speakers and 30 Mandarin learners of German. The results showed that Mandarin speakers differed significantly from the German speakers in producing the German tense-lax contrast. The general pattern was that Mandarin learners employed temporal features more strongly than spectral features to indicate the tense-lax contrast as compared to German speakers. The phonetic influences of the Mandarin language on the production of German tense and lax vowels are discussed.

FILLED PAUSES ARE SUSCEPTIBLE TO CROSS-LANGUAGE PHONETIC INFLUENCE

AbstractThis article investigates the effects of long-term bilingualism on the production of filled pauses (FPs; e.g., uh, um, eh, em) in the speech of Afrikaans-Spanish bilinguals from Patagonia, Argentina. The instrumental analysis draws from a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews obtained from three speaker groups: L1-Afrikaans/L2-Spanish bilinguals; L1-Spanish-comparison speakers, also from Patagonia; and L1-Afrikaans-comparison speakers from South Africa. In the data analysis, we examined relative FP usage (categorical outcomes), as well as phonetic measures of vowel quality and segmental duration (continuous outcomes). The results allude to multiple patterns of cross-language influence (e.g., L1-to-L2 influence, L2-to-L1 influence, bidirectional influence), which depend on the phonetic measure explored. Overall, the findings suggest that the patterns of cross-language phonetic influence observed in the L2 learning of traditionally understood lexical items likewise hold in the L2 learning of hesitation markers such as FPs.

Phonetic and stylistic effect of occasional hendiadys in Ukrainian poetical discourse of the 20th-21st centuries

Background. The modem Ukrainian poetical discourse is characterized by a lot of original author’s word-buildings - nonce words (occasionalisms) which are created as absolutely individual process. This process deals with intentional ignoring of language norms and standards. Phonetic and stylistic features of hendiadys in Ukrainian poetical discourse are still without detail describing. Purpose is to distinguish the phonetic marked hendiadyses in modern Ukrainian poetical discourse, this purpose includes the realization of the next tasks: 1) to describe the functions of hendiadys in creation by Ukrainian authors; 2) to classify the types of hendiadys depending on their stylistic expression in artistic text. Material and methods. As material for our research we used Ukrainian poetical works by M. Semenko, Yu. Shpol, V. Pachovskyi, B. Lepkyi, O. Irvanets, Yu. Andrukhovych, V. Neborak, I. Nyzovyi, V. Tsybulko, V. Teren, I. Luchuk, Ye. Zapeka, S. Zahreba, O. Levchenko, Yu. Izdryk and so on (2000 pages). We used continuous sampling method for selection and extract of occasional formations of hendiadys which make intensity of phonetic and stylistic effect of poetical background in the addressee’s (reader’s / listener’s) perception. The method of linguistic analysis used for determination of stylistic functions of hendiadys in Ukrainian poetical discourse. Thanks to the method of quantitative calculations we retraced the frequency of using of different types of hendiadys in the poetical works by Ukrainian masters of the word.Results. In Ukrainian poetical discourse semantic marked hendiadyses and represented purely phonetic play hendiadyses function. Besides hendiadys has some stylistic functions: 1) phonetic transformation of geographical names and proper person’s names; 2) onomatopoeia modeling; 3) formation of non-semantic word play with intensive phonetic and stylistic influence, that can be possible thanks to high frequency of alliterations and assonances; 4) hendiadys as semantic-stylistic synonym for describing of abstract notions.Discussion. Phonetic marked occasional hendiadys in verbal artistic discourse is a power stylistic expressive mean that forms an acoustic background of poetical work. The hendiadys realizes as occasional individual author’s unit used with pragmatic or only esthetic goal. In modern Ukrainian poetical discourse the most productive are hendiadyses created for purely artistic goal - word play modeling in which addressee (reader / listener) is an active decoder but not passive observer.Our future researches will focus on more detail studying of hendiadys phe-nomenon in the different functional styles of Ukrainian language.Article received 27.07.2019

Etymologie ludowe w toponimach na pograniczu polsko-ruskim

Toponyms are interesting linguistic material. They contain knowledge about the environment of our existence - its formation, wealth, history, and even about spatial or social relations. The purpose of this article was to obtain and analyse naming material (names and their folk etymologies) from seventeen villages located within three rural communes on both sides of the San River. The analysis was based on comparison of folk and scientific etymologies. This allowed to answer the questions of how current residents of the former ethnic borderland understand foreign names in their localities, what kind of conceptualisation of the world emerges from folk etymologies, and whether the river San as a natural obstacle significantly influenced the linguistic concepts of its right and left-bank residents. The analysis of toponyms indicates that in rural communities of the studied area, proper names were often motivated by historical, settlement and topographic specifics. Therefore, simple motivation dominates here: creators most often referred to physical properties such as shape and appearance. From other aspects, location, function and local residents were often considered. The relatively high percentage of names with foreign phonetic influences, largely incomprehensible to their contemporary users, stems from the turbulent history of this area and the overlapping Ruthenic, Slovak and other influences. No statistically important differences in conceptualisation of the world between the residents of the east and west sides of the river were detected.

Tradução comentada do conto Cinta grabada do escritor paraguaio Mario Halley Mora

O texto apresenta a tradução comentada ao português do conto Cinta grabada do escritor paraguaio Mario Halley Mora. Temos como objetivo discorrer brevemente sobre as escolhas tradutórias com o intuito de problematizar, sob o viés da Sociolinguística, a diversidade dos sistemas linguísticos envolvidos no texto fonte: o espanhol e o guarani; assim como os recursos utilizados na língua de chegada: a variedade do português brasileiro. Segundo Rabadán (1991), é usual na literatura o uso de variedades diatópicas ou diastráticas na caracterização dos personagens. Observa-se que a literatura paraguaia está permeada de usos da língua guarani, seja no emprego de léxicos, seja na manifestação de sua influência na variedade do espanhol paraguaio. O autor, com o objetivo de retratar a realidade linguística do Paraguai, mobiliza, na fala de seu personagem, características da classe social menos escolarizada (dimensão diastrática). Desse modo, na tradução, consideramos o bilinguismo paraguaio multissecular, produto do contato entre o guarani e o espanhol, que gerou influências mútuas entre ambas as línguas envolvidas. Na variedade do espanhol paraguaio, é possível avistar não só influências lexicais do guarani (resultado mais evidente do contato), senão influências fonéticas e morfossintáticas. Tais características estão formuladas no conto e desafiam o trabalho do tradutor. A riqueza do conto não se restringe apenas à variedade recriada na fala do narrador. Os causos rememorados por ele apresentam ao leitor fatos marcantes na história paraguaia, como a Guerra da Tríplice Aliança e suas consequências sociais, bem como o papel da Igreja Católica na sociedade. O leitor também poderá acessar um breve glossário dos léxicos em guarani utilizados no conto, os quais foram mantidos na tradução a modo de aproximá-lo à realidade sociocultural do Paraguai.

Increased language co-activation leads to enhanced cross-linguistic phonetic convergence

Purpose: This study investigates the effects of bilingual language modes (or settings) on the speech production patterns of a group of early Catalan/Spanish bilinguals from Majorca, Spain. Our main research question was as follows: are bilingual speech patterns modulated by the level of (co-)activation of a bilingual’s two languages? Design: Bilingual participants were classified as a function of their linguistic experience (or dominance), from Catalan- to Spanish-dominant. Subsequently, we recorded their speech in two experimental settings: a unilingual setting in which only Catalan words were uttered, and a bilingual setting in which both Catalan and Spanish words (cognates) were produced in random order. Data and analysis: The study examined the acoustic realization of Spanish and Catalan unstressed /a/, which surfaces as [a] in Spanish but is reduced to schwa, [ə], in Catalan. The acoustic characteristics of unstressed /a/ were explored across the two languages and the two experimental settings. Findings: Catalan unstressed /a/, which was similarly reduced to schwa in the speech of all participants, became slightly more similar to Spanish unstressed /a/ (i.e., it had a higher first formant) when produced alongside Spanish words (bilingual setting) than when produced in a Catalan unilingual setting. There were no effects of linguistic experience, and the effects of setting did not interact with experience. Originality: Very few studies have reported the effects of dynamic cross-linguistic interference in phonetic production, and even fewer have reported them with a phonetic variable resulting from a language-specific phonological process (unstressed vowel reduction) rather than a phonemic contrast. Implications: These findings suggest that cross-linguistic interaction is dynamic and modulated by language activation, and that an absence of dominance effects does not necessarily entail an absence of online cross-linguistic phonetic influence.

Text-independent speech emotion recognition using frequency adaptive features

In this paper a text-independent emotional speech feature extraction method is studied based on various spectral frequency bands of speech formants. First, the speech emotional feature analysis is performed for different text contents. Various sentences are involved to study the phonetic influences. Formant frequencies are grouped into different classes in order to reduce the text variability. These speech features are sensitive to phonetic changes in the sentence. Speaker emotions are then modeled in different formant groups. Second, adaptive fundamental frequency and Teager Energy Operator are constructed in different frequency bands. The Teager frequency bands are dynamically adapted to different pitch and formant distributions. The proposed adaptation is sensitive to emotional changes in speech, as shown in statistics of mean, variance, maximum and minimum. Statistics on the basic acoustic parameters are used as the emotional features. Experimental results show that the proposed emotional features are robust against text changes with the lowest variance value of 0.034. The final recognition results for six major emotion types are improved constantly and 5 percent improvement for sadness and 3.3 percent improvement for boredom are observed.

CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCES OF MALAY THROUGH CARTOONS ON INDONESIAN CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE USE IN THE HOME DOMAIN

The Malay cartoons that air on Indonesian television channels are now popular among children in Indonesia. The shows Upin & Ipin, Boboboi, and Pada Zaman Dahulu are especially popular with Acehnese children. Initial observations found that these cartoons have played a great role in the increased use of contemporary Malay in their Indonesian. Thus, this study discusses the cross-linguistic influences of Malay from cartoons in Indonesian children’s language use in the home domain. Data were collected through recordings and field notes. Some steps based on the framework by Lacey and Luff (2007) were taken to analyze the data. The results were transcribed and sifted to distinguish the significant data. The recording and its transcription were then re-checked. The last step was categorizing the data into cross-linguistic influences based on Ringbom (1987). These influences include borrowing, hybrids, phonetic influence, and relexification. The results showed the presence of only two aspects of cross-linguistic influences: borrowing and phonetic influences. Borrowing was the most frequent aspect, followed by phonetic influence. Relexification and hybrid did not appear in the data. Nevertheless, there were other cross-linguistic aspects that were found in the data, including intonation, parenthetic remark, and interjection. In the broad-spectrum, the initial mimic on the Malay cartoon characters has expanded to employment in the language use of the children while speaking Indonesian. This study is expected to contribute in some ways or another towards the development of sociolinguistics, especially in cross-linguistic influence in children’s language use. Indonesia and Malaysia are neighboring countries, and language contact between the two countries is inevitable and evident. Hence, the study on the influences can benefit sociolinguistics, especially when investigating language change in the future.

Locality and harmony: Perspectives from artificial grammar learning

AbstractHarmony is one of the most researched phenomena in phonological theory, mainly due to its iterative, nonlocal nature. In this review, I summarize several of the key issues in harmony that can be addressed using an artificial grammar learning approach, including differences between consonant and vowel harmony, transparent and opaque neutral vowels, computational complexity of attested and unattested harmony patterns, and morphological and phonetic influences on harmony. The review demonstrates how the artificial grammar learning paradigm can offer unique insights into the representation of vowel harmony and provides suggestions for ways in which aspects of harmony can be manipulated to offer further insights into the still unanswered questions on harmony and phonological representations.

Limitations of the influence of English phonetics and phonology on L2 Spanish rhotics

This study investigates L2 Spanish rhotic production in intermediate learners of Spanish, specifically addressing the duration of the influence of L1 English rhotic articulations and a phonetic environment involving English taps on the acquisition of Spanish taps and trills that Olsen (2012) found. Results from multiple linear regressions involving thirty-five students in Spanish foreign language classes show that the effect of English rhotic articulations evident in beginners has disappeared after four semesters of Spanish study. However, results from paired samples t-tests show that these more advanced learners produced accurate taps significantly more in words containing phonetic environments that produce taps in English. This effect is taken as evidence that L1 phonetic influences have a shorter duration on L2 production than do L1 phonological influences. These results provide insights into L2 rhotic acquisition which Spanish educators and students can use to formulate reasonable pronunciation expectations.