Resumen de tesis doctoral: ALVORD, S. Spanish Intonation in Contact: The case of Miami Cuban bilinguals. University of Minnesota (EE.UU)

Tue Sep 26 21:05:47 UTC 2006

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Resumen de tesis doctoral:
ALVORD, Scott Mark. 2006. Spanish Intonation in Contact: The case of
Miami Cuban bilinguals. University of Minnesota (EE.UU), Department of
Spanish and Portuguese
Información de: Scott Alvord <salvord at byu.edu>
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1. Autor:
    ALVORD, Scott Mark

2. Título:
    Spanish Intonation in Contact: The case of Miami Cuban bilinguals
    2.1. Número de páginas:
    2.2. Palabras clave: Spanish, Phonology, Sociolinguistics

3. Fecha de lectura o defensa: 2006

4. Departamento, centro o laboratorio en el que se ha desarrollado:
    Department of Spanish and Portuguese
    University of Minnesota
    EE.UU

5. Directores:
    Timothy L. Face
    Carol A. Klee

6. Proyecto o línea de investigación en el que se incluye

7. Resumen e ínidice:

This dissertation provides a preliminary description of the intonation
of two utterance types in Miami Cuban Spanish: broad focus
declaratives and absolute
interrogatives. An experimental phonology approach was taken to
collect linguistic data in Miami, Florida. The data was collected and
analyzed with the purpose of answering the following three research
questions:

1. What are the characteristics of broad focus declarative intonation in Miami
Spanish?

2. How do Miami Cubans differentiate between absolute (yes/no) interrogatives
and lexically and syntactically identical declarative utterances?

3. Is the intonation system changing through subsequent generations of Miami
Cubans? What are the social and linguistic factors motivating the use of the
observed intonation patterns?

Miami Cuban intonation for a declarative utterance with two content words was
analyzed as L*+H L+H* L-L%. It was revealed that there is a high rate
of deaccenting in Miami Cuban declarative utterances. Absolute
interrogatives were produced with two distinct intonation patterns,
the first with a rising final F0 contour, L*+H L* H-H%, and the second
with a falling final contour, L*+H L+H* L-L%. Miami Cuban
interrogatives are differentiated from lexically and syntactically
identical declaratives through the use of a rising final contour in
the case of rising interrogative pattern and through the use of a
higher F0 for both the rising and falling interrogative patterns.

A sociolinguistic study was performed using a variable rule analysis in order to
answer research question #3. The dependent variable examined was the
final F0 contour for the absolute interrogatives: rising or falling.
It was discovered that immigrant generation is a significant factor in
the variation and that there is an intonational change occurring in
subsequent generations. This variation, however, does not necessarily
constitute a change in progress. The first generation favors the use
of the Cuban-style falling intonation pattern while the second
generation strongly favors the rising pattern for absolute
interrogatives. The third generation, however, strongly favors the
Cuban-style interrogative. It was also determined that the social
networks of individual speakers are a significant factor influencing
the absolute interrogative intonation pattern used.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Introduction

Chapter 2
Historical and linguistic background of the Miami-Cuban community
2.1 The Community: Miami Cubans
2.2  Miami: A bilingual City
2.3  Miami Cuban Spanish

Chapter 3
Theoretical approaches to the study of Spanish intonation
3.1  What is intonation?
3.2  The Autosegmental-Metrical (AM) Theory of Intonational Phonology
3.3  Spanish Intonation
3.4  Intonation in Contact
3.5  Research Questions

Chapter 4
Methodology

Chapter 5
Findings: Phonological Analysis
5.2  Miami Cuban Declarative Intonation
5.3  Miami Cuban Absolute Interrogative Intonation
5.4  Declarative vs. Interrogative Intonation
5.5  Discussion

Chapter 6
Findings: Sociolinguistic Analysis
6.1  Introduction
6.2  Variable Rule Analysis
6.3  Summary of the Sociolinguistic Analysis

Chapter 7
Conclusion
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Research Question #1
7.3 Research Question #2
7.4 Research Question #3
7.5 Limitations
7.6 Conclusion

Appendix A  Test Sentences
Appendix B  Background Questionnaire
Bibliography

8. Correo-e del autor:
    Scott Alvord <salvord at byu.edu>

9. Cómo obtener la tesis
    Ponerse en contacto con el autor Scott Alvord <salvord at byu.edu>

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