Stimulus variability and perceptual learning of nonnative vowel categories (original) (raw)
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Non-native vowel perception: The interplay of categories and features
2018
The book Non-native vowel perception: The interplay of categories and features is devoted to vowel perception in the second, third and foreign language by Polish advanced learners English, French or Dutch as the second and third language in a formal classroom instruction setting. So far it has been assumed that non-native sound perception is based on assimilation to the first language categories or new category formation. The present book hypothesizes that also individual phonetic features, which the learner is familiar with, and the lack of reaction to unknown features play a role in speech perception. The first study is a longitudinal English vowel perception study which examines which features ease perception development. Studies two and three examine whether and, if so, to what extent, the phonetic features known from the L2 and L3 influence non-native perception. It is tested how the learners of English, French and Dutch perceive Dutch and Turkish vowels. The studies have confi...
This study examined the effect of two different trainings on the production of Eng-lish vowels (/iː/, /ɪ/, /æ/, /ʌ/ and /ɑː/) by French learners. Forty-eight French first-year students, who had learned English in school only, were divided into three groups receiving either 5 sessions of perceptual training (PE-Group), or 5 sessions of production training (PR-Group) or no training (C-Group). They were recorded at pre-test and post-test with a reading task of /bVd/ words, and their performance was evaluated by discriminant analysis based on sex-specific models trained on native speakers productions. The results show improved classification rates for the vowels /ʌ/ and /ɪ/ in the PR-Group and only for /iː/ in the PE-Group. No improvement was observed for the C-Group.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2004
This study addresses the hypothesis that the more accurately a speaker discriminates a vowel contrast, the more distinctly the speaker produces that contrast. Measures of speech production and perception were collected from 19 young adult speakers of American English. In the production experiment, speakers repeated the words cod, cud, who'd, and hood in a carrier phrase at normal, clear, and fast rates. Articulatory movements and the associated acoustic signal were recorded, yielding measures of contrast distance between /a/ and /[see text for symbol]/ and between /u/ and /[see text for symbol]/. In the discrimination experiment, sets of seven natural-sounding stimuli ranging from cod to cud and who'd to hood were synthesized, based on productions by one male and one female speaker. The continua were then presented to each of the 19 speakers in labeling and discrimination tasks. Consistent with the hypothesis, speakers with discrimination scores above the median produced greater acoustic contrasts than speakers with discrimination scores at or below the median. Such a relation between speech production and perception is compatible with a model of speech production in which articulatory movements for vowels are planned primarily in auditory space.
Identification and Discrimination Training Yield Comparable Results for Contrasting Vowels
2019
This study compares the use of an identification task with the use of a discrimination task for training Japanese speakers on the English high front vowels. Seventeen Japanese speakers completed two sessions of identification training with feedback, using ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’ tokens that were manipulated to vary along the vowel duration and formant dimensions. Their results were compared with those of twenty Japanese speakers trained with an AX discrimination task. A two-alternative forced-choice identification task (without feedback) evaluated the participants’ use of temporal and spectral information before and after training. The results indicate that both training paradigms led to comparable improvement in the use of temporal and spectral information. Hence, previous research suggesting that the identification task provides superior results to the discrimination task may be due to mislabeling issues, rather than learners’ lack of improvement in the use of spectral information.
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.
Understanding the role of orthography in the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast
Language Sciences, 2010
This paper examines the role of orthographic information used during training on the ability to learn a non-native vowel contrast. We investigate whether exposure to novel grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences can help learners in the acquisition of a new phonological contrast. Three related experiments were carried out on the acquisition of the French vowel opposition between /u/ (as in 'vous', you) and /y/ (as in 'vu', seen) by American English listeners. The experiments consisted of word learning, perceptual discrimination and vowel-categorization tasks. The results reveal that the use of orthography during training did not appear to have a significant influence on performance during testing and that the consonantal context in which the French vowels occur influences the categorization of the vowels by American English listeners. We explore several explanations as to the lack of an effect and, secondarily, discuss implications of these studies for pronunciation training involving the use of minimal pairs. Please cite this article in press as: Simon, E. et al., Understanding the role of orthography in the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast, Lang. Sci. (2009),
Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech - Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 2014
The present study investigated whether high variability perceptual training can be effective in the modification of Portuguese EFL learners’ mature perceptual patterns of three English vowel contrasts (/i/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/, and /u/-/ʊ/). Learners’ perception was assessed three times (pretest, posttest and delayed posttest) with an identification test. The five-session perceptual training included discrimination and identification tasks with immediate feedback. The results revealed that the Portuguese learners’ performance in the identification of the target vowels improved significantly after training, and the knowledge gained during perceptual learning was retained two months after completion of the training program. Moreover, the scores of the generalization test indicate that there was robust learning of two of the target vowel contrasts. The results of this experiment support the claim that perceptual learning can occur in non-naturalistic environments within a short period of time and corroborate previous findings on the malleability of L2 adult learners’ perceptual systems.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2007
This study investigated whether individuals with small and large native-language ͑L1͒ vowel inventories learn second-language ͑L2͒ vowel systems differently, in order to better understand how L1 categories interfere with new vowel learning. Listener groups whose L1 was Spanish ͑5 vowels͒ or German ͑18 vowels͒ were given five sessions of high-variability auditory training for English vowels, after having been matched to assess their pre-test English vowel identification accuracy. Listeners were tested before and after training in terms of their identification accuracy for English vowels, the assimilation of these vowels into their L1 vowel categories, and their best exemplars for English ͑i.e., perceptual vowel space map͒. The results demonstrated that Germans improved more than Spanish speakers, despite the Germans' more crowded L1 vowel space. A subsequent experiment demonstrated that Spanish listeners were able to improve as much as the German group after an additional ten sessions of training, and that both groups were able to retain this learning. The findings suggest that a larger vowel category inventory may facilitate new learning, and support a hypothesis that auditory training improves identification by making the application of existing categories to L2 phonemes more automatic and efficient.