Analizing a Native Spanish Speaker's English Pronunciation

Watch this video. We all know that Penélope Cruz’s mother tongue is Spanish and it is evident in the way she pronounces English. 

We can perceive how she produces accurate aspiration of the /t/, even though it is not a feature used by Spanish speakers. On the other hand, she uses /s/ instead of /z/ in was, castings and jobs. This is a mistake that might be produced due to the entrenchment of the plural “S” in Spanish, which is always produced as /s/ in final position. Another error she produces due to her mother tongue influence is the use of /d/ instead of /ð/ in the sequence in the. This can be caused by the influence of the voiced alveolar nasal before the voiced dental fricative. In this case, there is an instance of progressive assimilation of the /d/ under the influence of the /n/ instead of the expected regressive assimilation of the [n̪ ] under the influence of the  /ð/. When she pronounces also doing and modeling, she uses /ð/ because it is the preferred sound in intervocalic position in Spanish.

None of the errors interferes with intelligibility in this context. They could be considered “optional attention” errors according to Kenworthy (1987); Category 3 according to Collins & Mees (2001), since they would not even cause amusement or irritation; and acceptable for general intelligibility according to Cruttenden (2001) because the instances of use do not bring about misunderstandings since function words do not affect meaning importantly (in the case of in the) and the plural is perceived no matter the voicing of the alveolar fricative.

Hope you enjoy this entry!