Identificación del foco entonativo inglés por estudiantes frente a hablantes nativos

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the identification of English intonational focus by Spanish learners of English as compared to native English speakers' perceptions and to focus in Spanish. Two focus domains were investigated: subject and verb focus. Native English speakers showed higher correct identification rates than language learners, as was predicted. All listeners found verb focus more difficult to identify than subject focus. The potential ambiguity of English focus when not utterance initial maybe responsible for this trend. Verb focus was also the condition in which the difference between the two listener groups was most pronounced. Considering that both focus domains are possible in Spanish and that subject focus is far more frequent than verb focus, it is suggested that for learners native language interference may have increased the difference in discriminations for the two focus domains analyzed.