Influence of the Linguistic Multi-Competence on Turkish EFL Teachers' Pronunciation of Stress-Timed Rhythm in English

Abstract

Linguistic multi-competence holds that the knowledge of more than one language in the L2 user’s mind results in an overall system in which there is a constant state of inter-connectedness between cross-language components. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of linguistic multi-competence on L2 speech rhythm through acoustic analysis. The study design comprised the criteria of L2 evidence, (outer) baselines, multiple-language evidence, and total system. The study was conducted online via audio-conferencing. The study group consisted of seven multi-competent Turkish EFL teachers, who have successively acquired English as their L2. Across three elicitation methods, read and spontaneous speech samples were collected from the multi-competent participants for both English and Turkish. The speech data, segmented by the researcher, were analysed using Praat, measuring rhythm metrics ΔC and %V, as well as articulation rate. The acoustic analysis has yielded that the type of rhythm in Turkish speech differs from that of English, highlighting rhythm as a language-specific property that needs to be accommodated in L2 acquisition. Furthermore, it was revealed that even highly proficient non-native teachers of English bear traces of their L1 in L2 speech rhythm, which could denote that it is nearly impossible to constrain the effects of knowing multiple languages in speech production. It was accordingly concluded that rhythm, affected by the idiosyncratic state of bi/multilingual cognition, is a suprasegmental feature that needs to be integrated into the L2 user’s multi-competence as part of an inter-connected meaning-making system.