Individual learners’ results and progress

From the pedagogical point of view, we are also interested in the individual learner’s performance, which is not sufficiently reflected in general results, comparisons of group means or even in data showing the general scale of observed problems. Even the figures indicating the number of subjects who meet native English standards may to some extent be misleading especially if the numbers referring to PL1 and PL2 refer to different students. Therefore this section is devoted to individual students’ scores and progress.

The presentation of results refers to Hypotheses 2—3, focusing on syllable and word duration discrepancies between Polish and English speakers in unstressed positions and under nuclear accent. Table 6.17 ranks all speakers according to mean absolute duration of unstressed syllables in non-nuclear, non-phrase final trochaic content words.

Table 6.17 shows much stronger syllable reduction in native speakers.

The raw durations, however, do not allow for individual speech rate differences and rank faster speakers higher. The analysis performed in Chapter 5 suggests that average speech rate does not depend on the speaker’s L1. Still, the calculations are involved in stressed vowel durations alone and do not reflect longer and more complex phonological structures. Indeed, the average time a native speaker needs to pronounce a phrase is shorter, not only because of more reduced unstressed units, but also because of consonantal lenitions, less often employed by non-native speakers.

Since we aim at finding clearly defined differences between native and non-native speech in a situation where large individual variation makes it a difficult task, we will try to test whether the fast non-native speakers who rank among native ones for mean unstressed syllable duration make a temporal distinction between prominent and non-prominent units. To achieve this, we

6.2 Word/foot-level timing relations 125

Table 6.17. Individual speakers’ mean unstressed syllable durations (MUSL) in ms. Native speakers’ codes in bold

Subject All unstressed

syllables (19) Subject Weak forms (14) Subject Content words (5)

CJE 102 CPT 100 CPT 106

CMC 102 CMC 102 AK2 107

AS2 104 CJE 102 CJI 111

CJI 108 CMF 106 MG2 115

AK2 109 CJI 107 AS2 122

CMF 112 AK2 110 CER 123

CLH 115 CLH 111 RM1 125

AO2 123 AO2 121 MB2 125

AS1 129 DK2 121 PA1 126

RM1 131 AS1 122 PO2 126

DK2 134 PS2 132 CLH 127

PA2 137 PA2 133 CMF 127

PA1 142 RM1 134 AO2 130

PO1 142 PO1 142 PO1 141

PS2 142 JK2 145 AS1 147

MG2 143 AK1 147 AO1 147

MB2 146 PA1 149 PA2 149

PO2 149 LK2 150 AJ2 162

LK2 155 MG2 153 DK2 168

JK2 155 MB2 153 LK2 169

AO1 166 PO2 158 PS1 170

AK1 168 AJ2 171 DK1 171

AJ2 169 AO1 173 PS2 171

PS1 176 PS1 178 AJ1 175

MG1 182 MG1 180 MB1 178

JK1 182 JK1 183 JK1 180

DK1 190 LK1 192 JK2 185

AJ1 192 DK1 196 MG1 188

MB1 192 MB1 197 LK1 213

LK1 198 AJ1 199 AK1 226

calculate a speaker’s personal mean syllable duration (MSL), which is a figure obtained by simply dividing the speaker’s total measured duration of a reference set of six phrases² by the total number of syllables (37).

The selected reference phrases are characterised by the lowest proportion of pauses, hesitations, text distortions and, in effect, relatively lower standard deviation in duration measures within particular groups of speakers.

This method is based on the same idea as the procedure described in Chapter 5, where we calculated the proportion of standard deviation to mean vowel length in order to demonstrate greater vowel duration “flexibility” in native speakers. The difference is that standard deviation cannot be used in this part of analysis because we do not (need to) know the actual duration of all syllables in the reference phrases. Still, given an MSL, which indicates the speaker’s reading rate relative to all the other subjects, we can divide the figure by corresponding mean unstressed syllable duration (MUSL), calculated for 19 items (cf. Table 6.17), 14 weak forms of function words and 5 unstressed syllables in content words.³ In this way, we obtain the syllable variation index (SVI), which shows the scale of the individual speaker’s syllable length variation. The results and ranking of speakers are displayed in Table 6.18.

6.2 Word/foot-level timing relations 127

2See Appendix B.

3See Appendix C.

Table 6.18. Syllable variation index (SVI=MSL:MUSL) and individual speaker ranking by SVI (column 2) and MSL (column 6)

Columns

1 2 3 4 5 6

Subject SVI MSL MUSL Subject MSL

CSM 1.89 152 80 CTG 135

CLP 1.82 162 89 RM2 145

CMC 1.73 177 102 CSM 152

CHB 1.72 161 94 CMA 154

CJE 1.70 173 102 MG2 157

CJI 1.66 179 108 AS2 160

CTG 1.66 135 82 CHB 161

CMF 1.63 182 112 CLP 162

CER 1.62 165 101 CER 165

CPT 1.62 165 102 CPT 165

CMA 1.60 154 96 AK2 170

CLH 1.59 183 115 CJE 173

AK2 1.56 170 109 PA2 175

AS2 1.53 160 104 CMC 177

AS1 1.52 196 129 CJI 179

As Table 6.18 (columns 1—4) illustrates, SVI cleanly separates native speakers from non-native speakers. Neither MSL nor MUSL alone are decisive for the speaker’s ranking, although shorter values tend to occupy higher positions. Larger figures generally indicate a higher speech rate, usually connected with more confident, fluent use of language, which is also more likely to include more unstressed unit reduction.

The ranking of speakers according to mean syllable duration reveals other regularities. Almost half of the Polish speakers (6 in 13) in their second recording achieve a speech rate comparable to native speakers, but none of them reaches a native-like SVI value.

In terms of the learners’ development, we observe a faster reading rate in all 13 speakers after the practice. Most of them (8) have improved their timing as well. Two subjects (PA and PO) have increased their distance from native timing standards, and the remaining three (PS, RM, MG) have not changed their syllable timing despite considerable acceleration.

Columns

1 2 3 4 5 6

Subject SVI MSL MUSL Subject MSL

PO1 1.51 214 142 AO2 182

DK2 1.49 200 134 CMF 182

AO2 1.48 182 123 CLH 183

PA1 1.45 206 142 RM1 191

RM1 1.45 191 131 PS2 191

RM2 1.45 145 100 AS1 196

MB2 1.36 198 146 PO2 198

PS1 1.35 238 176 MB2 198

PS2 1.34 191 142 MG1 199

JK2 1.33 206 155 DK2 200

PO2 1.33 198 149 LK2 203

AO1 1.32 220 166 JK2 206

LK2 1.31 203 155 PA1 206

AK1 1.29 216 168 PO1 214

AJ2 1.28 216 169 AK1 216

PA2 1.28 175 137 AJ2 216

DK1 1.28 242 190 AJ1 218

JK1 1.27 232 182 AO1 220

MB1 1.23 236 192 LK1 229

LK1 1.16 229 198 JK1 232

AJ1 1.13 218 192 MB1 236

MG2 1.10 157 143 PS1 238

MG1 1.10 199 182 DK1 242

cont. tab. 6.18

6.2.6 Summary

In comparison to native English speakers’ performance, untrained Polish learners’ unstressed syllables are 32—94% longer in non-phrase-final trochaic content words, depending on syllable structure. After 7 months of training, the corresponding values are reduced to a 21—71% difference. Phrase-final unstressed syllables are comparable (cf. section 6.2.1). Tested function words are also longer, 39—135% in PL1 and 9—109% in PL2 (section 6.2.2).

The Polish learners’ function word relative durations are longer too, although certain fixed phrases, e.g. had to or going to show native-like proportions because the verbs are also considerably shorter in native performance. Both unstressed syllables of content words and unstressed function words are in many cases longer than the longest native durations in more than half of the Polish learners (cf. Tables 6.2, 6.4 and 6.5), which indicates a serious pedagogical problem.

The problems with weak forms and unstressed syllables are also visible in temporal relations to content word durations which, often longer in PL1, become similar to EN in PL2. The accompanying unstressed function words, despite the learners’ general progress, remain significantly longer. These discrepancies are neutralised in phrase-final positions, where the native speakers show a tendency to lengthen their speech units more than do Polish learners.

This subchapter has shown generally more syllable durational variation in native English speech, as demonstrated in Table 6.18 by individual speakers’

relations between their personal mean syllable duration and mean unstressed syllable duration (SVI).