Plasticity in vowel and consonant perception by Chinese learners of Dutch-accented English (original) (raw)
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Interlingual identification and the role of foreign language experience in L2 vowel perception
Applied Psycholinguistics, 1990
This artil;le examines the perception of four English vowels (Ii, I, e, reI) by adult native speakers of German. From the standpoint of German, it appears that English Ii, I, £I are perceptually similar, if not identical, to German Ii, I, £I, whereas lrel is a "new" vowel for German learners of English. The role of foreign language experience in the perception of second language vowels was examined through labeling responses to members of synthetic continua (beat-bit, bet-bat) in which vowel duration and spectrum were varied factorily. The subjects were relatively experienced and inexperienced second language (L2) learners and a monolingual English control group. The results suggest that L2 experience did not affect perception for the continuum with the two "similar" vowels IiI and III. However, for the continuum involving the "new" vowel lrel, the experienced Germans more closely resembled the native English speakers than the inexperienced Germans. The predominant use of duration cues in differentiating the English Id-/rel contrast by the inexperienced Germans suggested that when spectra] cues are insufficient to differentiate an L2 vowel contrast, duration will be used.
The effect of experience on the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast
Language Sciences, 2012
This study examines the effect of second language experience on the acquisition of the English vowel contrast /e/-/ae/ by native speakers of Dutch. It reports on the results of production and perception tasks performed by three groups of native Dutch learners of English in Belgium, differing in experience with English, as measured through study choice and progress. Whereas experience has often been defined in terms of 'Age of Acquisition' or 'Length of Residence' in studies on L2 immersion in, for instance, immigrant settings, in traditional foreign language contexts experience needs to be defined in terms of amount of instruction and (non-)naturalistic exposure. The results revealed an asymmetry in production and perception: all learners seemed to have created a new phonetic category for English /ae/, but failed to phonetically implement it in a native-like way. No new category for the vowel /e/ was created, but learners who had opted for English studies at tertiary level produced a clear contrast between the two English vowels. All learner groups performed well on a discrimination and identification task involving the vowels /e/ and /ae/. The results are discussed in light of currently used speech learning theories, such as Flege's Speech Learning Model (1987Model ( , 1995, Best's Perceptual Assimilation Model for naï ve listeners and its adaption for learners in an Second Language Acquisition context . It is argued that predictions formulated within these models also hold for learners in a Foreign Language Acquisition context. experience with native speakers'' (original italics). In the present study, 'experience' is therefore defined in terms of 'amount of formal instruction and (non-)naturalistic exposure' to the L2. Since in FLA contexts, the medium in which formal instruction in the target language is provided is usually the target language itself, i.e. English proficiency classes are taught in English, this double definition ('instruction and exposure') is inevitable: in FLA contexts, formal instruction goes hand in hand with exposure to either native or, perhaps more often, non-native exposure to the target language. The first aim of the study is to examine the effect of experience in an FLA context, measured in terms of amount of formal instruction and exposure to the target language, on the production and perception of a non-native vowel contrast. In order to examine this, production and perception data of three groups of native Dutch speakers in Flanders, differing in their experience with L2 English as a result of their study choice and study progress, will be examined.
First language phonetic drift during second language acquisition
Ph.D. dissertation, 2010
Despite abundant evidence of malleability in speech production, previous studies of the effects of late second-language learning on first-language production have been limited to advanced learners. This dissertation examines these effects in novice learners, finding that experience in a second language rapidly, and possibly inexorably, affects production of the native language. In a longitudinal study of Korean acquisition, native English-speaking adult learners (n = 19) produced the same English words at weekly intervals over the course of intensive elementary Korean classes. Results of two acoustic case studies indicate that experience with Korean rapidly influences the production of English, and that the effect is one of assimilation to phonetic properties of Korean. In case study 1, experience with Korean stop types is found to influence the production of English stop types (in terms of voice onset time and/or fundamental frequency onset) as early as the second week of Korean classes, resulting in the lengthening of VOT in English voiceless stops (in approximation to the longer VOT of the perceptually similar Korean aspirated stops) and the raising of F0 onset following English voiced and voiceless stops (in approximation to the higher F0 levels of Korean). Similarly, in case study 2, experience with the Korean vowel space is found to have a significant effect on production of the English vowel space, resulting in a general raising of females' English vowels in approximation to the overall higher Korean vowel space. These rapid effects of second-language experience on first-language production suggest that cross-language linkages are established from the onset of second-language learning, that they occur at multiple levels, and that they are based not on orthographic equivalence, but on phonetic and/or phonological proximity between languages. The findings are discussed with respect to current notions of cross-linguistic similarity, exemplar models of phonology, and language teaching and research practices.
Early learners’ discrimination of second-language vowels
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2006
It is uncertain from previous research to what extent the perceptual system retains plasticity after attunement to the native language ͑L1͒ sound system. This study evaluated second-language ͑L2͒ vowel discrimination by individuals who began learning the L2 as children ͑"early learners"͒. Experiment 1 identified procedures that lowered discrimination scores for foreign vowel contrasts in an AXB test ͑with three physically different stimuli per trial, where "X" was drawn from the same vowel category as "A" or "B"͒. Experiment 2 examined the AXB discrimination of English vowels by native Spanish early learners and monolingual speakers of Spanish and English ͑20 per group͒ at interstimulus intervals ͑ISIs͒ of 1000 and 0 ms. The Spanish monolinguals obtained near-chance scores for three difficult vowel contrasts, presumably because they did not perceive the vowels as distinct phonemes and because the experimental design hindered low-level encoding strategies. Like the English monolinguals, the early learners obtained high scores, indicating they had shown considerable perceptual learning. However, statistically significant differences between early learners and English monolinguals for two of three difficult contrasts at the 0-ms ISI suggested that their underlying perceptual systems were not identical. Implications for claims regarding perceptual plasticity following L1 attunement are discussed.
Languages, 2020
Perception of a nonnative language (L2) is known to be affected by crosslinguistic transfer from a listener's native language (L1), but the relative importance of L1 transfer visa -vis individual learner differences remains unclear. This study explored the hypothesis that the nature of L1 transfer changes as learners gain experience with the L2, such that individual differences are more influential at earlier stages of learning and L1 transfer is more influential at later stages of learning. To test this hypothesis, novice L2 learners of Korean from diverse L1 backgrounds were examined in a pretest-posttest design with respect to their perceptual acquisition of novel L2 consonant contrasts (the three-way Korean laryngeal contrast among lenis, fortis, and aspirated plosives) and vowel contrasts (/o/-/Λ/, /u/-/ USV Symbol Macro(s) 0266 ɦ \m{h} \texthookabove \texthth 0267 ɧ \texthookabove \texththeng 0268 ɨ \B{i} \textbari 0269 ɩ \m{i} \textiota \textiotalatin \textniiota 026A ɪ \textsci 026B ɫ \textltilde 026C ɬ \textbeltl 026D ɭ \textrethookbe \textrtaill 026E ɮ \textlyoghlig \textOlyoghlig 026F ɯ \textturnm 0270 ɰ \textturnmrleg 0271 ɱ \m{m} \textltailm 0272 ɲ \m{j} \textltailn \textnhookleft 0273 ɳ \m{n} \textrtailn 0274 ɴ \textscn 0275 ɵ \textbaro 0276 ɶ \textscoelig 0277 ɷ \textcloseomeg 0278 ɸ \textphi \textniphi 0279 ɹ \textturnr 027A ɺ \textturnlongl 027B ɻ \textrethookbe \textturnrrtai 027C ɼ \textlonglegr 027D ɽ \textrethookbe \textrtailr 027E ɾ \textfishhookr 027F ɿ \textlhti \textlhtlongi 0280 ʀ \textscr 0281 ʁ \textinvscr 0282 ʂ \textrethookbe \textrtails /). Whereas pretest performance showed little evidence of L1 effects, posttest performance showed significant L1 transfer. Furthermore, pretest performance did not predict posttest performance. These findings support the view that L1 knowledge influences L2 perception dynamically, according to the amount of L2 knowledge available to learners at that time. That is, both individual differences and L1 knowledge play a role in L2 perception, but to different degrees over the course of L2 development.
Systemic drift of L1 vowels in novice L2 learners
Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 428–431), 2011
Studies of proficient second-language (L2) learners have often noted phonetic drift of their native language (L1) vis-à-vis monolingual norms. Such drift has been attributed to perceptual linkage between similar sounds in L1 and L2. This study provides evidence that L1 phonetic drift is limited neither to advanced L2 learners, nor to cross-language influence at a segmental level. During the first weeks of an elementary Korean class, adult native English speakers were found to shift their English vowel space in approximation to the Korean vowel space, suggesting that in adult L2 learners phonetic drift of L1 vowels occurs in a rapid, systemic, and assimilatory fashion.
A longitudinal study of individual differences in the acquisition of new vowel contrasts
Journal of Phonetics, 2018
This study explores how individuals' second language cue weighting strategies change over time and across different contrasts. The study investigates the developmental changes in perceptual cue weighting of two English vowel contrasts (/i/-/ɪ/ and /ɛ/-/ae/) by adult and child Korean learners of English during their first year of immersion in Canada. Longitudinal results revealed that adult learners had an initial advantage in L2 perceptual acquisition over children at least for the /i/-/ɪ/ contrast, but after one year some children showed greater improvements especially on the more difficult /ɛ/-/ae/ contrast. Both groups of Korean learners showed different acquisition patterns between the two vowel contrasts: they used both spectral and duration cues to distinguish /i/-/ɪ/ but generally only duration to distinguish /ɛ/-/ae/. By examining cue weights over time, this study partially confirmed the hypothesized developmental stages for the acquisition of L2 vowels first proposed by Escudero (2000) for Spanish learners of English. However, some unpredicted patterns were also identified. Most importantly, the longitudinal results suggest that individual differences in cue weighting are not merely random variability in the learner's response patterns, but are systematically associated with the developmental trajectories of individual learners and those trajectories vary according to vowel contrast.