Celia Gorba

About Me

I hold a PhD in English Philology (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB) and a MA in Advanced English Studies: Multilingualism and Acquisition of English (UAB). I am postdoctoral researcher at the Grup d’Estudis de Prosòdia (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and at the phonetics and phonology group at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona thanks to a Margarita Salas grant. My research focuses on the acquisition of second language (L2) speech from both a theoretical and applied perspective. My previous work has investigated important factors in the acquisition of L2 speech, such as language experience and lexical processing, and the benefits of perceptual training on both perception and production skills. Currently, I am working on a phonetic training project which compares different phonetic training modalities, including a purely phonetic training, a lexical training and a multimodal training involving gestures. I have teaching experience in phonetics and phonology, oral skills and English pronunciation, as well as in psycholinguistics, language acquisition, teaching methodologies and the use of new technologies to teach a foreign language. 

Research Interests

• L2 speech 
• Phonetics and phonology 
• The acquisition of L2 prosody 
• Phonetic training 
  
  

Publications

Journal Articles 

Gorba, C.(2023). Is Full Time Equivalent an appropriate measure to assess L1 and L2 perception? Special issue on Native Speech Perception in the Context of Multilingualism and Language Learning. Languages.  

Gorba, C., & Cebrian, J. (2023). The acquisition of L2 voiced stops by English learners of Spanish and Spanish learners of English. Speech Communication, 146, 93-108.  

Gorba, C. and Cebrian, J. (2021). The role of L2 experience in L1 and L2 perception and production of voiceless stops by English learners of Spanish. Journal of Phonetics, 88.  

Cebrian, J., Gorba, C., Gavaldà, N. (2021). When the easy becomes difficult: Factors affecting the acquisition of the English /iː/-/ɪ/ contrast. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 1-17. Doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.660917.  

Gorba, C. (2019). Teaching L2 English Pronunciation: Research and Course Design. Review of “Murphy, J. (ed.) (2017). Teaching the pronunciation of English: Focus on whole courses. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. viii + 352 pp. ISBN: 978-0-472-03644-8” and “Jarosz, A. (2019). English Pronunciation in L2 Instruction: The Case of Secondary School Learners. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland AG. xii + 165 pp. ISBN: 978-3-030-13891-2”. Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies.   

De Leeuw, E., Stockall, L., Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, D. & Gorba, C. (2019). Illusory vowels in Spanish-English sequential bilinguals: Evidence that accurate L2 perception is neither necessary nor sufficient for accurate L2 production. Second Language Research.  

Gorba, C. (2019). Bidirectional influence on L1 Spanish and L2 English stop perception: The role of L2 experience. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 145, EL587 (2019); doi: 10.1121/1.5113808  

Conference proceedings 

Liu, Z., Gorba, C., Cebrian, J. (2019). Effects of learning an additional language on VOT perception. In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019 (pp. 260-264). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc. 2019. ISBN 978-0-646-80069-1. 

Cebrian, J., Carlet, A., Gorba, C., Gavaldà, N. (2019). Perceptual training affects L2 perception but not cross-linguistic similarity. In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019 (pp. 929-933). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc. 2019. ISBN 978-0-646-80069-1. 

Book chapters 

Gorba, C. (2018). The effect of L2 experience on the categorization of native and non-native stops by Spanish learners of English. In Sara Martin, David Owen and Elisabet Pladevall-Ballester (Eds.), Persistence and Resistance in English Studies. New Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. ISBN 978-1-5275-0608- 

Select conferences 

Cebrian, J., Gorba, C. (2022). “Do L2 experience and metalinguistic knowledge affect the perception of cross-language similarity? ”Paper presented at Paper presented at the Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching (PSLLT) conference 2021. Brock University, Canada. June 2022. 

Cortés, S., Cebrian, J., Gavaldà, N., Gorba, C. (2022). “Assessing the effect of cognate status on L2 learners’ ability to recognize words and detect segmental accent.” Paper presented at New Sounds 2022. Univesitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. April 2022. 

Cebrian, J., Gorba, C., Gavaldà, N., Carlet, A. (2022). “Phonetic vs. phonological perceptual mappings: contrasting naïve, experienced and trained listeners.” Paper presented at New Sounds 2022. Univesitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. April 2022. 

Gavaldà, N., Cebrian, J., Cortés, S., Gorba, C. (2021). “Are mispronunciations more common and less detectable in cognate than in non-cognate words?”. Paper presented at 30th Annual Meeting of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA). Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. July 2021. 

Gorba, C., Cortés, S., Cebrian, J., Gavaldà, N. (2021). “Investigating the role of cognate status in L2 production and perception”. Paper presented at the VIII Congreso Internacional de Fonética Experimental (CIFE), Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain. June 2021. 

Gorba, C., Cebrian, J. (2021). “Perception and production of English and Spanish stops by Englishlearners of Spanish”. Paper presented at 12th Annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference (PSSLT),  Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. June 2021. 

Gorba, C. (2019). “Acquiring L2 voiced stops: the case of Spanish learners of English and English learners of Spanish”. Paper presented at 43rd AEDEAN Conference, Universitat d’Alacant, Alicante, Spain. November 2019. 

Cortés, S., Cebrian, J., Gavaldà, N., Gorba, C., Carlet, A. (2019). “Exploring cognate effects in L2 speakers’ consonant production and perception”. Poster presented at New Sounds 2019. Symposium of Second Language Speech. Tokyo, Japan. August 2019. 

Liu, Z., Gorba, C., Cebrian, J. (2019). “Effects of learning an additional language on VOT perception”. Paper presented at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), Melbourne, Australia. August 2019. 

Gorba, C. (2019) “The effect of setting on L1 and L2 stop categorization”. Poster presented at the L2 Pronunciation Research Workshop: Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice. Barcelona, Spain. June 2019. 

Cebrian, J., Gavaldà, N., Carlet, A., Gorba, C. (2018). “Effects of perceptual training on vowel perception and production and implications for L2 pronunciation teaching”. Paper presented at the Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching conference 2018, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA. September 2018. 

Gorba, C., Cebrian, J. (2018). “The effect of language experience on L1 and L2 VOT perception of English and Spanish stops”. Paper presented at the European Second Language Association (EuroSLA) 28, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany. September 2018. 

Cebrian, J., Carlet, A., Gavaldà, N., Gorba, C. (2017). “L2 vowel learning through perceptual training: Assessing training method, task familiarity and metalinguistic knowledge”. Paper presented at the 18th World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA), organized by the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. June 2017.