Anna Gralińska-Brawata | University of Łódz (original) (raw)
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Papers by Anna Gralińska-Brawata
Research in Language
The parallels that are present between language and music, together with popular beliefs that mus... more The parallels that are present between language and music, together with popular beliefs that musicality may be a factor enhancing language learning, especially with regard to pronunciation, prompted the idea of designing an academic course whose main aim was to demonstrate the relation between the two domains from the linguistic perspective. There were eighteen students participating in the course which was an elective for 1st year MA students of English at the University of Łódź. The course content included presentation of direct links between language and music, and of selected studies indicating the influence of music on developing various aspects of linguistic performance, e.g. second language learning (e.g. Pastuszek-Lipińska, 2008; Kolinsky et al., 2009), early reading abilities (Fonseca-Mora et al., 2018) or pitch processing (Besson et al., 2007). The practical part of the course involved testing the students' musical abilities with the use of various tools: tests availa...
Research in Language, 2017
The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if... more The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if there exists a relationship between the production of word stress and learners’ musical abilities, and then, to explore the effects of this relationship on teachability of word stress to Polish advanced students of English. The results of the analysis on the auditory recordings were compared with the information provided by the informants in a questionnaire and a performance music test. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the students tend to overgeneralise word stress rules in English rather than transfer the penultimate syllable rule from Polish. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between word stress production and musical ability for the majority of the participants.
The paper investigates the dynamics of speech rhythm in Polish learners of English and, specifica... more The paper investigates the dynamics of speech rhythm in Polish learners of English and, specifically, how rhythm measurements revealing durational characteristics of vocalic and consonantal intervals through the measures (%V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI) change along the process of second language acquisition as a result of language experience and phonetic training, and influence rhythmic characteristics of L2 English. The data used for the analysis come from 30 Polish first-year students of the University of Łódź recorded reading two texts (English and Polish) during two recording sessions separated by a 7-month period of language studies and compared to the data obtained from the recordings of native speakers of English. The experiment aims at verifying whether the participants achieve progress in the rhythm measure scores under the influence of language experience and phonetic training, as it has already been confirmed that general proficiency of non-native speakers of Englis...
Research in Language, Jun 30, 2015
This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of E... more This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of English at an intermediate/upper-intermediate level. More specifically, it attempts to explore the relationship between rhythm measures scores in L1 Polish and L2 English within individual speakers. Phonological vowel reduction in terms of duration is present in English and crucial for the perception and acoustic measurements of linguistic rhythm. Polish, on the other hand, has no phonological reduction of that kind. The acquisition of L2 vowel reduction is highly determined by the level of language proficiency and influences non-native rhythmic patterns. The study tests six speech rhythm measures: %V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI-V in two tempos: normal and fast. The results show that most of these measures are positively and significantly correlated with each other between L1 Polish and L2 English across the subjects and for two tempos, although to a different degree. Highly significantly correlation has been noted for %V and ΔC in fast tempo. Moderate significant correlations between the two languages are observed for ΔV, ΔC (normal tempo), VarcoV and nPVI in fast tempo.
Research in Language, Sep 30, 2017
The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if... more The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if there exists a relationship between the production of word stress and learners' musical abilities, and then, to explore the effects of this relationship on teachability of word stress to Polish advanced students of English. The results of the analysis on the auditory recordings were compared with the information provided by the informants in a questionnaire and a performance music test. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the students tend to overgeneralise word stress rules in English rather than transfer the penultimate syllable rule from Polish. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between word stress production and musical ability for the majority of the participants.
Research in Language, Sep 30, 2017
The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if... more The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if there exists a relationship between the production of word stress and learners' musical abilities, and then, to explore the effects of this relationship on teachability of word stress to Polish advanced students of English. The results of the analysis on the auditory recordings were compared with the information provided by the informants in a questionnaire and a performance music test. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the students tend to overgeneralise word stress rules in English rather than transfer the penultimate syllable rule from Polish. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between word stress production and musical ability for the majority of the participants.
Research in Language, 2015
This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of E... more This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of English at an intermediate/upper-intermediate level. More specifically, it attempts to explore the relationship between rhythm measures scores in L1 Polish and L2 English within individual speakers. Phonological vowel reduction in terms of duration is present in English and crucial for the perception and acoustic measurements of linguistic rhythm. Polish, on the other hand, has no phonological reduction of that kind. The acquisition of L2 vowel reduction is highly determined by the level of language proficiency and influences non-native rhythmic patterns. The study tests six speech rhythm measures: %V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI-V in two tempos: normal and fast. The results show that most of these measures are positively and significantly correlated with each other between L1 Polish and L2 English across the subjects and for two tempos, although to a different degree. Highly signific...
Research in Language, 2014
ABSTRACT
Research in Language
The parallels that are present between language and music, together with popular beliefs that mus... more The parallels that are present between language and music, together with popular beliefs that musicality may be a factor enhancing language learning, especially with regard to pronunciation, prompted the idea of designing an academic course whose main aim was to demonstrate the relation between the two domains from the linguistic perspective. There were eighteen students participating in the course which was an elective for 1st year MA students of English at the University of Łódź. The course content included presentation of direct links between language and music, and of selected studies indicating the influence of music on developing various aspects of linguistic performance, e.g. second language learning (e.g. Pastuszek-Lipińska, 2008; Kolinsky et al., 2009), early reading abilities (Fonseca-Mora et al., 2018) or pitch processing (Besson et al., 2007). The practical part of the course involved testing the students' musical abilities with the use of various tools: tests availa...
Research in Language, 2017
The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if... more The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if there exists a relationship between the production of word stress and learners’ musical abilities, and then, to explore the effects of this relationship on teachability of word stress to Polish advanced students of English. The results of the analysis on the auditory recordings were compared with the information provided by the informants in a questionnaire and a performance music test. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the students tend to overgeneralise word stress rules in English rather than transfer the penultimate syllable rule from Polish. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between word stress production and musical ability for the majority of the participants.
The paper investigates the dynamics of speech rhythm in Polish learners of English and, specifica... more The paper investigates the dynamics of speech rhythm in Polish learners of English and, specifically, how rhythm measurements revealing durational characteristics of vocalic and consonantal intervals through the measures (%V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI) change along the process of second language acquisition as a result of language experience and phonetic training, and influence rhythmic characteristics of L2 English. The data used for the analysis come from 30 Polish first-year students of the University of Łódź recorded reading two texts (English and Polish) during two recording sessions separated by a 7-month period of language studies and compared to the data obtained from the recordings of native speakers of English. The experiment aims at verifying whether the participants achieve progress in the rhythm measure scores under the influence of language experience and phonetic training, as it has already been confirmed that general proficiency of non-native speakers of Englis...
Research in Language, Jun 30, 2015
This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of E... more This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of English at an intermediate/upper-intermediate level. More specifically, it attempts to explore the relationship between rhythm measures scores in L1 Polish and L2 English within individual speakers. Phonological vowel reduction in terms of duration is present in English and crucial for the perception and acoustic measurements of linguistic rhythm. Polish, on the other hand, has no phonological reduction of that kind. The acquisition of L2 vowel reduction is highly determined by the level of language proficiency and influences non-native rhythmic patterns. The study tests six speech rhythm measures: %V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI-V in two tempos: normal and fast. The results show that most of these measures are positively and significantly correlated with each other between L1 Polish and L2 English across the subjects and for two tempos, although to a different degree. Highly significantly correlation has been noted for %V and ΔC in fast tempo. Moderate significant correlations between the two languages are observed for ΔV, ΔC (normal tempo), VarcoV and nPVI in fast tempo.
Research in Language, Sep 30, 2017
The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if... more The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if there exists a relationship between the production of word stress and learners' musical abilities, and then, to explore the effects of this relationship on teachability of word stress to Polish advanced students of English. The results of the analysis on the auditory recordings were compared with the information provided by the informants in a questionnaire and a performance music test. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the students tend to overgeneralise word stress rules in English rather than transfer the penultimate syllable rule from Polish. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between word stress production and musical ability for the majority of the participants.
Research in Language, Sep 30, 2017
The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if... more The pilot study presented in this paper is exploratory in nature and aims first to investigate if there exists a relationship between the production of word stress and learners' musical abilities, and then, to explore the effects of this relationship on teachability of word stress to Polish advanced students of English. The results of the analysis on the auditory recordings were compared with the information provided by the informants in a questionnaire and a performance music test. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the students tend to overgeneralise word stress rules in English rather than transfer the penultimate syllable rule from Polish. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between word stress production and musical ability for the majority of the participants.
Research in Language, 2015
This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of E... more This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of English at an intermediate/upper-intermediate level. More specifically, it attempts to explore the relationship between rhythm measures scores in L1 Polish and L2 English within individual speakers. Phonological vowel reduction in terms of duration is present in English and crucial for the perception and acoustic measurements of linguistic rhythm. Polish, on the other hand, has no phonological reduction of that kind. The acquisition of L2 vowel reduction is highly determined by the level of language proficiency and influences non-native rhythmic patterns. The study tests six speech rhythm measures: %V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI-V in two tempos: normal and fast. The results show that most of these measures are positively and significantly correlated with each other between L1 Polish and L2 English across the subjects and for two tempos, although to a different degree. Highly signific...
Research in Language, 2014
ABSTRACT