Accounting for effects of monitored speech: vowel nasalization, nasal consonant weakening and /s/ production in Spanish

Abstract In laboratory studies, speakers often modify their speech (e.g., by hyper-articulating, attempting a “supra-regional” norm, or hypercorrecting) to ‘speak correctly’, especially under the (perceived) expectation of formal speech. A strategy to address this challenge involves comparing performance on one variable against a well-documented pattern on another variable. Previous research in Spanish shows /s/ sensitivity to speech formality, making it a useful comparison for probing other lenition processes. This study uses the acoustics of coda /s/ to predict the acoustics of /n/ and pre-nasal vowels among speakers of Argentine and Dominican Spanish, two dialects in which these have been widely attested. The data analyzed come from 28 speakers of Dominican Spanish and 26 of Argentine Spanish, recorded with a nasometer (a split channel set of microphones that record nose and mouth signals separately). Findings shows pervasive presence of frication for /s/ (whether [s] or [h]), suggesting heightened attention to speech. Additionally, longer /s/ co-occurs with longer nasal consonants. However, when duration of /s/ was compared to the time-course of nasalization, only the Argentine data showed earlier onset of nasalization with shorter /s/. The addition of a well-known sociolinguistic variable can serve as a validity measure for a less understood variable.