About

Timothy Face is a professor in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, specializing in Hispanic Linguistics with a focus on Spanish phonology, phonetics, prosody, and intonation. He holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from The Ohio State University, earned in 2001, along with a master's degree in Hispanic Linguistics from the same institution and a bachelor's degree in Spanish from Michigan State University. His research encompasses the acquisition, development, and ultimate attainment of the Spanish sound system by native English-speaking adult learners, as well as speech perception, phonological theory, and language use in Spanish. Face has contributed extensively to the field through publications including books, edited volumes, and articles, and he is the founding editor of the journal Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics. He has also organized conferences on Spanish and Portuguese second language phonology and laboratory approaches to Spanish phonology. Currently, he serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Spanish & Portuguese Studies and has held visiting professorships, including at Brigham Young University.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Linguistics
• History
• Philosophy
• Archaeology

Selected publications

• Chilean Spanish Intonational Plateaus and Their Pragmatic Functions: A Case of Contact with Mapudungun

  Languages · 2024-07-12 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Intonational plateaus exist in Chilean Spanish in contexts in which they do not exist in any other variety of Spanish. Mapudungun, which has been in contact with Chilean Spanish for centuries, also has plateaus in similar contexts, although for years, the possibility of any influence of Mapudungun on Spanish has been largely dismissed. The present study examines the discourse contexts in which intonational plateaus occur in both Chilean Spanish and Mapudungun and finds that their pragmatic function is similar, with the vast majority of cases highlighting information based on the subjective communicative desire of the speaker rather than falling into established syntactic or pragmatic categories such as narrow focus. However, while the pragmatic function is similar between the languages, Mapudungun has a wider use of the plateaus, indicating a likely longer presence in this language. Based on the similarities in pragmatic function, the absence of such plateaus in any other variety of Spanish, and the wider use of plateaus in Mapudungun, this paper argues that the Chilean Spanish plateaus originate from Mapudungun due to their centuries-long history of intense language contact.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Remembering SHLL Associate Editor Kimberly Geeslin

  Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics · 2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology
  • History
  PublisherDOI

• A Thank You and a Welcome

  Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics · 2023-04-28

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Frontmatter

  Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics · 2023-04-28

  articleOpen access1st author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Production of Acoustic Correlates of Stress by L2 Spanish-Speaking Immigrants to Spain

  Languages · 2023-10-30

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Little work has examined the L2 acquisition of Spanish stress, and especially the production of its acoustic correlates, and the work that has is largely limited to inexperienced learners. This study examines the production of stress by L1 English/L2 Spanish speakers who are highly experienced with their L2, having lived much of their adult lives as immigrants in Spain. Data were collected from the reading of a short story, an extended reading with a plot was provided so that participants would not be focused on their pronunciation, thus producing speech closer to spontaneous speech while still allowing for control over what they produced. Intensity, duration, pitch and deaccenting were examined and the results from the L2 learners were compared to a control group of native speakers from Spain who performed the same task. While only one L2 learner’s stress production could be classified as completely native-like, as a group, their stress production approximated native speaker norms to a greater degree than has been found for most other aspects of L2 Spanish pronunciation in previous research. Nonetheless, L2 learners seemed to transfer duration patterns from their L1 into their L2 Spanish and also deaccented stressed syllables nearly twice as often as native speakers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Frontmatter

  Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics · 2022-05-01

  articleOpen access1st author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ultimate attainment of Spanish laterals by native English-speaking immigrants in Spain

  2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology
  • History

  Compared to English, Spanish laterals are produced with the tongue farther fronted in the mouth, and this is especially true in syllable codas where English has a velarized lateral. L1 English speakers learning Spanish as an L2 need to learn to produce lighter laterals in all contexts, and especially in syllable codas. Previous studies have shown that learners of L2 Spanish do not eliminate the influence of the more back L1 English laterals but have not examined more experienced learner groups than graduate students studying Spanish. The present study investigates the lateral production of L1 English-speaking immigrants to central Spain who have spent much of their lives living in Spain, immersed in the culture and language. As a group, the learners’ laterals differ significantly from those of native Spanish speakers, but individual learners are either native-like or come very close to native-like pronunciation when comparing their productions to native speaker ranges. This finding stands out from findings of other studies with this same learner population where they do not come close to having a native-like pronunciation.

  Publisher

• L2 Acquisition of Spanish VOT by English-Speaking Immigrants in Spain

  Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics · 2020 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology

  Abstract Previous studies of native English speakers learning Spanish as a second language (L2) document compromise voice onset time (VOT) values; however, the focus has been predominantly on voiceless stops and has almost exclusively investigated beginning and intermediate learners. This study fills a gap in the literature by considering the acquisition of VOT in both voiceless and voiced Spanish stops by long-time native English-speaking residents of Spain. Overall, the results show that the L2 speakers’ VOT values differ from those of native speakers across all stop consonants; yet L2 speakers’ productions of voiceless, as opposed to voiced, stops more closely approximate those of native speakers. Considerable individual variation is observed as no speaker achieves native-like performance overall, and no consonant is mastered by more than half of the speakers. Results are considered in light of what they contribute to our understanding of ultimate attainment of Spanish VOT, specifically, and L2 phonology more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• What does advanced L2 pronunciation look like?

  Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone linguistics · 2020-08-16 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This study investigates ultimate attainment in second language (L2) Spanish pronunciation by examining the production of L2 Spanish stops, approximants, and rhotics by first language (L1) speakers of American English who immigrated to central Spain and have lived there for a large portion of their lives. As a group, the learners’ pronunciations were much closer to the native speaker norms than those of less advanced learners in previous studies, yet no learner achieved native-like pronunciation for any of the consonant groups. Nonetheless, the results of the present study show that advanced learners are characterized by considerable development beyond the pronunciation of less advanced learners and that they do acquire some native-like aspects in their pronunciation.

  PublisherDOI

• El estado final de la adquisición de las vibrantes españolas por inmigrantes a España con inglés como primera lengua

  e_Buah · 2018-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This study investigates the ultimate attainment of the second language acquisition of Spanish rhotics by a group of U.S.-born, native English speaking immigrants to central Spain who are long-time residents. While previous studies examine the second language acquisition of Spanish rhotics, these tend to focus on university students learning Spanish, and thus nothing is known about the extent to which advanced second language learners develop in their rhotic pronunciation and how closely they approximate the pronunciation of native speakers. The extensive immersion in the Spanish language and culture that characterizes these immigrants gives them as high a likelihood as one could expect of second language learners of achieving native-like pronunciation. As a group, however, acoustic analysis reveals that the immigrants do not approximate nativespeaker performance, though they far exceed that of learners in other studies. While one immigrant does come close to native-like performance, most fall short.

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Chad Howe

  73 shared

• Ann Pires

  Walter de Gruyter (Germany)

  73 shared

• Marta Maria

  Translational Research Platform for Veterinary Biologicals (India)

  73 shared

• Scott A. Schwenter

  The Ohio State University

  73 shared

• Esther Markus

  Walter de Gruyter (Germany)

  73 shared

• Elena María

  Translational Research Platform for Veterinary Biologicals (India)

  73 shared

• A Tucson

  Walter de Gruyter (Germany)

  73 shared

• Martin Pedro

  University of Minnesota

  73 shared

Awards & honors

• Presidents' Prize - Linguistic Association of Canada and the…