Abstract
Though research in acoustic phonetics entails laboratory conditions, the rapid technological development accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic bids the question of remote recording, the success of which could provide phoneticians with more research opportunities. This paper explores the feasibility of remote sample collection in the context of examining the degree of aspiration in initial voiceless stops in Serbian and English with Serbian EFL students. Since the role of positive Voice Onset Time (VOT) in English and Serbian differs significantly, a clear contrast between English long-lag and Serbian short-lag stops might prove challenging for Serbian EFL students. To examine the degree of VOT acquisition, audio recordings are made for 5 advanced and 5 proficient speakers. The participants are firstly recorded in laboratory conditions. Next, the participants are asked to read the same material in a quiet space within their homes, record their speech using mobile phones, and deliver the recordings via email. For each token, both laboratory and remote recordings are examined using the speech analysis software Praat (Boersma & Weeninik, 2023). Results indicate that remote recording via smart phones yielded reliable samples with measurable VOT for the voiceless plosives /p t k/ in both English and Serbian. Proficient speakers displayed VOT values that approached native-like patterns. In contrast, the less proficient group exhibited shorter VOT durations, but a significantly clearer distinction between the use of aspiration in Serbian and English. Additionally, a surprising finding shows that proficient speakers assign longer VOT to Serbian plosives too, likely owing to L2 transfer.
Author Information
Nina Đukić, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Paper Information
Conference: PCE2023
Stream: Language Development & Literacy
This paper is part of the PCE2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Đukić N. (2023) Long Distance Recordingship: Assessing the Use of Remote Recordings in Acoustic Research on Serbian EFL Students’ Acquisition of English VOT ISSN: 2758-0962 The Paris Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2023.54
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2023.54
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