Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Many of the world’s languages manipulate duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity at the syllable level (i.e., lexical stress) to achieve relative prominence of one syllable over others in a word. Variable-stress languages—languages in which this manipulation is used contrastively (i.e., stress minimal pairs such as TRUsty vs. trusTEE)—differ in the relative importance of lexical stress for spoken word recognition. These cross-linguistic differences in the importance of lexical stress result from the relative distribution of stress minimal pairs as well as whether vowel reduction co-occurs with unstressed syllables. It has been argued that lexical stress plays an equally important role as phonemes in spoken word recognition for speakers of some variable-stress languages such as Spanish. However, commonly cited models of spoken word recognition—which are based primarily on monolingual English listeners about whom research has presented conflicting evidence on the importance of lexical stress—fail to mention lexical stress altogether. This omission has led many researchers to call for revisions to models of spoken word recognition. Missing from the discussion has been the experience of bilingual listeners of variable-stress languages.
In the present study, I investigated the faciliatory effect of lexical stress for spoken word recognition among bilingual Spanish-English listeners (N = 48) and monolingual English listeners (N = 41). This study involved a verbal shadowing task to ascertain the impact of errors of lexical stress on spoken word recognition. Results from this study challenge the exclusion of lexical stress from models of spoken word recognition. Although between-group differences were noted, participants from both language groups were significantly more likely to respond accurately to stimuli with correct stress. It would be difficult to explain the present findings without reference to lexical stress as a facilitator of spoken word recognition. The present findings suggest that lexical stress is an important cue to word identity for bilingual Spanish-English and monolingual English listeners. Thus, model revisions are warranted.
Date
7-1-2025
Recommended Citation
Hogan, Adam J., "The Effect of Errors of Lexical Stress on Word Repetition Accuracy Among Monolingual and Bilingual Listeners" (2025). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 6827.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6827
Committee Chair
Gibson, Todd A.
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.6827
Included in
Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics Commons, Speech and Hearing Science Commons, Speech Pathology and Audiology Commons