The use of linking by native and non-native speakers of American English

This study examines the evidence for the use of the phenomenon of linking, or connected speech modifications, for native speakers of American English (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) of English. In a speech production experiment which seeks to replicate and examine in more detail the set of experiments reported in Hieke (1984) and Anderson-Hsieh, Riney & Koehler (1994), reading and spontaneous speech performance from two groups of beginning-proficiency (BP) and intermediate-proficiency (IP) non-native speakers of English is compared to that of five NSs of American English. Results indicate that, while BP and IP participants link their words significantly less often than NS participants do, their linking rates are similar despite the difference in proficiency level. In addition to the frequency of two types of linking, consonant-to-vowel (C-V) and vowel-to-vowel (V-V), the study investigates the effect that style shifting and syntactic structure have on the frequency of linking