Substitution Patterns of the English Voiced Interdental Fricative by L1 Costa Rican Spanish Speakers

Abstract

L1 Spanish speakers learning English struggle to produce the English voiced interdental fricative [ð]. This is surprising as [ð] occurs naturally in Spanish as an intervocalic allophone of /d/. To investigate Spanish speakers’ production of [ð] in English, I conducted a study with ten L1 Costa Rican Spanish/L2 English speakers. The results show that English voiced interdental fricatives were produced with target pronunciation 43.4% (214/494) of the time and were substituted in the remaining 56.6% (280/494). It was determined that target-sound substitution patterns depend on the phonological contexts in which the target sound occurs (word-initial vs. intervocalic), and the type of speaking task (reading vs. spontaneous). I interpret these results as partially due to phonological transfer: L1 allophonic information affects L2 speech production. The results also show that the realization of the segments is affected by the different experimental tasks: speakers have more target-like production in tasks where there is an opportunity for more careful pronunciation (reading task) than in more spontaneous ones. Finally, I argue that the unexpected appearance of the alveolar tap [ɾ] is due to an interaction between the English /d/ tapping allophone rule and the status of [d] and [ð] in the learner’s interlanguage.