Evaluation by Native Listeners

A. Spanish Speech:

 In order to evaluate FT's foreign accent in Spanish (L1), we used 84 speech fragments in Spanish:

a) 12 of FT obtained from a domestic video recording made before the lesion
b) 12 of FT obtained after the lesion
c) 12 of FT obtained after the lesion and masked with background noise from the video recording
d) 12 of 4 Spanish women (Natives)
e) 12 of the same 4 Spanish women and masked with background noise from the video recording
f)  12 of 4 French women (Foreigners)
g) 12 of the same 4 French women and masked with noise from the video recording
Native female French speakers were used because, in a previous study, 50% of the listeners had stated that FT’s accent sounded French.

A total of 15 native Spanish listeners evaluated the speaker’s accent in the 84 fragments using the following scale:
 

Rating Scale:

      1 :  native Spanish accent
      2 :  slight o possible trace of foreign accent
      3 :  moderate or fairly definite trace of foreign accent
      4 :  strong foreign accent, definitely not native Spanish 
 


 

B. French Speech:

A second similar experiment was carried out with fragments in French, using the same number of fragments of FT, 24 fragments of 4 French women (Natives), and 24 fragments of 4 Spanish women (Foreigners) with a good command of French.

A total of 12 native French listeners evaluated the speaker’s accent in the 84 fragments using the following scale:
 
 
 

Rating Scale:

      1 :  native French accent
      2 :  slight o possible trace of foreign accent
      3 :  moderate or fairly definite trace of foreign accent
      4 :  strong foreign accent, definitely not native French 
 


 

RESULTS (A and B)
 



Data showed that  FT did not have a foreign accent in Spanish prior the lesion, in contrast to the strong foreign accent which she displayed after it (t (14) = 33.16, p< .001). FT’s accent before the lesion was no different from that of the native Spanish control subjects (p > .10), whereas after the lesion it sounded more foreign than that of the actual foreigners (t  (14) = 7.35, p< .001).
As regards FT’s French, evaluations made by native French listeners failed to show any change her French before and after the lesion (p> .10). Compared with the French native group, FT has a stronger foreign accent (t = 12.80, p< .001), but compared with the Spanish natives, she has a better French accent (t = 9.82, p < .001).
 
 

Back