Resumen de The interaction of acoustic and orthographic input in the acquisition of Spanish assibilated/fricative rhotics

Yasaman Rafat

• There is growing evidence that exposure to orthographic input affects second language phonological acquisition. This study examined the effects of auditory-orthographic interactions on second language assibilated/fricative rhotic productions of 20 naive English speakers of Spanish, with an acoustic-phonetic approach. The participants were assigned to two groups: auditory-only and auditory-orthographic. The results were indicative of a higher rate of both assibilated/fricative rhotics and approximant rhotics in the auditory-orthographic group. In addition, there was evidence that the acoustic input modulated the orthographic effects. However, the auditory-only group produced a higher rate of postalveolar sibilants. These results will be discussed in terms of (a) the salience-enhancing effect of the grapheme and (b) the overriding effect of orthography.