Park or bark? VOT production of English bilabial stops in Omani Arabic speakers of English

This study compares Voice Onset Time (VOT) patterns of word-initial English/b/and/p/in three groups: Omani undergraduate students, Omani professors and native English speakers (NES). It aims to investigate whether Omani Arabic students and professors can produce native-like VOTs of the English bilabial stops compared to NESs, and to what extent the findings support speech learning theories, such as the Speech Learning Model and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Words containing/b, p/in two different phonetic environments (CV and CC) were elicited from the participants using a reading task. Also, Arabic words containing word-initial/b/were elicited from Omani professors to compare the VOT of Arabic and English/b/. The results revealed a significant difference between the mean VOT of Arabic and English/b/. A significant difference in the VOT patterns of/p/between students and NESs were also found, but not between professors and NESs. Students'/p/productions were characterized with shorter lag compared to those of professors or NESs. Variability in the production of English/b/existed among Omani speakers. While VOT production in NESs were characterized with short lag, students' and professors’ productions were characterized sometimes with voicing lead and other times with short/long lag. VOT values of/b/and/p/were not significantly affected by the phonetic context. The findings are discussed in relation to the Speech Learning Model and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. • Although both English and Arabic has /b/, the VOT of this sound is different in Arabic and English. • Experience has a significant effect in the success rate for producing an English /p/. • Experienced Omani English speakers produce a native-like VOT of English /p/ unlike less experienced speakers. • Omani Speakers of English face difficulty producing a native-like VOT of English /b/.