Abstract

The current study investigated vowel quality in Miami Cuban Spanish, looking specifically at the influence of English on the Spanish vowel system. The vowel production of eleven Miami Cubans from three generations is investigated. Subjects include six males and five females. Three different elicitation instruments were used. The first was a brief sociolinguistic interview, the second was a story that the participants were asked to read aloud. Carrier words were embedded into the story in order to obtain multiple samples of both stressed and unstressed vowels. For the third instrument, subjects were asked to read a list of words with careful attention to their pronunciation. The reading list contained the same words that were embedded in the story of the first task. These three instruments were repeated in both Spanish and in English in order to investigate possible English influence in the Spanish vowel system of these bilinguals.

Degree

College and Department

Humanities; Spanish and Portuguese

Rights

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