Productions of English Vowels by Native Speakers of Arabic: Acoustic Measurements and Accentedness Ratings

Productions of ten English vowels in /bVt/ and /bVd/ contexts were elicited from a group of native American English speakers and a group of native Arabic speakers who had learned English in adulthood. When a variety of acoustic measurements, including vowel durations, F 1 and F 2 frequencies, and movement in F 1 and F 2 were examined, the two groups were found to differ on at least one of these parameters for nearly every vowel considered. A subset of the Arabic speakers' productions, and the productions of two native English speakers, were rated for accentedness by five native English judges. The rating data indicated that only a minority of the Arabic group's productions were regarded by the judges as “native-like”. When the acoustic measurement data were regressed on the mean ratings, it was found that the accentedness scores were correlated primarily with F 1 frequency and movement in F 2 , although the significant predictors varied from vowel to vowel.