Lahoz Bengoechea, José MaríaTuninetti, AlbaEscudero Neyra, Paola RocíoCalhoun, SashaEscudero Neyra, Paola RocíoTabain, MarijaWarren, Paul2025-02-122025-02-122019José María Lahoz-Bengoechea, Alba Tuninetti & Paola Escudero 2019. "Spoken word recognition by English-speaking learners of Spanish". In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019 (pp. 2243-2247). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.978-0-646-80069-1https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/118031This work has been partially funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language.ABSTRACT: Spoken word recognition is a hard task. As an aid, native listeners develop segmentation strategies efficiently attuned to phonological properties of their language, like the rhythmic unit (foot, syllable, or mora). If second-language (L2) learners persist in using their own unit, they may experience longer processing times and even miss word boundaries. Therefore, the question arises as to whether highly proficient L2-speakers can inhibit their segmentation habits. Native Spanish subjects and English-speaking learners of Spanish took a word-spotting test. Participants heard nonsensical words and had to decide whether a real Spanish word or pseudoword was embedded. Some words and pseudowords were stress-initial; others were stress-medial. Different reaction times for both conditions would indicate foot-based segmentation. RTs showed non-significant differences across conditions for either L1 group. English speakers may interpret Spanish unreduced vowels as cues to foot beginning, with their foot-based segmentation having the same effect as syllable-based in this case.engbook parthttps://assta.org/proceedings/ICPhS2019/https://assta.org/open access811.134.2'34811.134.2'243Spoken word recognitionL2 acquisitionRhythmic unitsSpanishLengua españolaLingüísticaEnseñanza de la lengua y la literatura5705.06 Fonología5705.01 Lingüística Comparada5701.11 Enseñanza de Lenguas