Spanish-speaking Subjects Research Articles

LOCATIVE AND DIRECTIONAL EXPRESSIONS IN BASILANG SPEECH

This paper forms part of a project designed to describe the pidginization found in basilang speech, the earliest stage in second‐language acquisition, from the perspectives of word order, reference to time, and reference to space. The research reported here deals with locative and directional expressions in the English interlanguage of three Spanish speakers, two Japanese speakers, and one Chinese speaker. The results indicate that the oriental subjects tend to form these structures without prepositions much more frequently than Spanish speaking subjects. In addition, transfer and simplification seem to account for the structure of spatial expressions in basilang interlanguage.

Performance of bilingual subjects on Spanish and English versions of the Depression Adjective Check Lists.

To study the performance of bilingual subjects on the Spanish and English versions of the Depression Adjective Check Lists (DACL), 27 males and 34 females completed the three forms of the DACL (E, F, and G), each of which was printed half in Spanish and half in English. Order of language was counterbalanced. No significant effects either for language or sex of subject were found. These findings, together with high correlations (.84 to .89) between the Spanish and English halves of each list, support the use of the Spanish version of the DACL in research with Spanish-speaking subjects from the southwestern United States.

The noise cues of English and Spanish fricatives

In a previous investigation by the writer [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 66, S88 (1979)], spoken /f,θ/ noise was amplified to a level typical of /s,∫/ noise with respect to the vowel and spliced into tokens of spoken /si,sα,su, ∫i, ∫α,∫u/ fricative-vowel CV syllables to replace natural /s/ and /∫/ noise segments. Speakers of American English judged the consonant percepts in the modified syllables to be mostly /s/, some /∫/ and infrequently /f,θ/. The high intensity of the amplified /f/ and /θ/ noise in the modified syllables cued the /s,∫/ percepts. Spanish American subjects are currently being tested using the original stimuli. A high % /f/ percepts have been reported. The Spanish speakers find the noise spectrum of the spliced-in /f/ and /θ/ noise segments to be a sufficient cue for an /f/ percept. The response differences between the Spanish and English speaking subjects are attributable to their respective phonological systems. The results are an example of phonetic organization in perception. Our findings are in agreement with Manrique and Massone [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 69, 1145–53 (1981)], who tested Spanish and English speaking subjects usng a synthetic stimulus continuum.

Development of Speech-Audiometric Materials for Native Spanish-Speaking Adults

The lack of valid and reliable Spanish speech audiometry materials constitutes an important clinical problem. Such tests necessitate the construction of appropriate materials. Analysis of English and Spanish literature on speech audiometry led to the identification of guidelines for new test materials in the Spanish language. Test lists were devised, recorded and used to evaluate 10 normal-hearing native Spanish-speaking subjects. The results obtained led to a final set of recorded lists. Boston College Auditory Test lists may be used successfully with Spanish-speaking patients. The current study should provide the impetus and sufficient guidelines upon which speech stimuli in other languages may be constructed.

Does dietary health education reach only the privileged? The Stanford Three Community Study.

The relationship of selected social factors to diet, weight and plasma cholesterol was studied in one control and two treatment towns before and after a 3-year, bilingual, mass-media health education program. Spanish-speaking persons reported higher dietary cholesterol and saturated fat than English-speaking participants at baseline, and this remained true after adjusting for the confounding influence of socioeconomic status (SES). Obesity was also more prevalent in Spanish-language and low-SES groups, but plasma cholesterol was not related to these sociodemographic factors. Over the 3 years of the education program, all groups reported 20-40% decreases in dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. These decreases were as large in low-SES groups as in high-SES groups; Spanish-speaking participants reported significantly greater decreases in dietary saturated fat (p = 0.02). Weight change was not related to either SES or language group, but change in plasma cholesterol was marginally more favorable in Spanish-speaking subjects (p = 0.06).

The modification of speech perception and production in second-language learning.

Seventy-two native Spanish speaking children enrolled in programs to teach English as a second language and 24 monolingual English children were tested in speech perception and production tasks with the purpose of determining whether or not there is learning at the phonetic level during second-language acquisition. Performance with the phonetic feature voicing was studied by means of measuring changes in the perception and production of the acoustic property voice onset time. Variables of interest across Spanish-speaking subjects were degree of exposure to English and age. Age was the only group variable for the English-speaking subjects. Results with the Spanish-speaking children showed significant changes in both perception and production of voicing towards the English monolingual pattern. Age had a significant effect in production, but not in perception. It was concluded that learning at the phonetic level does occur during second-language acquisition.