(Un)Learning Voicing in Multilingual Speech

The Department of Spanish & Portuguese is pleased to invite you to a lecture by professor Zsuzsanna Bárkányi, visiting from the Open University in the United Kingdom.

About the Presentation

In this talk we will address learner knowledge and behavior regarding dynamic (post-lexical allophonic) voicing processes in multilingual speech. We will look at experimental production and perception data on regressive voicing assimilation in pre-obstruent and pre-sonorant position in the speech of L1 Hungarian, L2 / L3 English / Spanish learners. We will also examine the role of cognates in the acquisition of these processes. Although current speech learning models do not address the acquisition of non-contrastive processes explicitly, the three languages of this study provide an interesting opportunity to test (some of) their predictions. Finally, we will discuss the challenges of modelling the acquisition of allophonic variation.

About the Presenter

Dr Zsuzsanna Bárkányi is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at The Open University, United Kingdom. Previously, she worked as a Speech Linguistic Project Manager for Google’s text-to-speech synthesis team. Zsuzsanna holds a PhD in Spanish Linguistics by Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research focuses on the interface of phonetics and phonology, she widely published on the phonetics and phonology of voicing related processes. She also works on foreing language speaking anxiety; L2 Spanish pronunciation, as well as teacher training and online and distance lanuage learning.