Casual speech phonology and perception of further languages: The case of Latvian (original) (raw)
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Boundary effects in Polish English – implications for 'similarity' in L2 phonology
Experimental phonetic studies examine the extent to which Polish learners of English acquire phonological processes occurring at word boundaries in the target language. In particular, we look at linking of vowel-initial words and the suppression of stop release in word-final stops. Our results suggest that glottalization of vowels, which blocks linking of initial vowels, and coda stop release production, both constitute L1 phonological interference that learners must overcome. The phonology of these seemingly unrelated effects may be unified in the Onset Prominence framework, in which parametric representational mechanisms govern the extent of phonetic cohesion between segments and the formation of prosodic boundaries. Implications for the oft-invoked notion of cross-language phonological similarity are also discussed. 1 -Introduction For a significant percentage, if not a majority, of studies on second language (L2) phonology, it is segmental contrasts that constitute the linguisti...
Journal of Phonetics, 2011
This paper studies the perception of Estonian duration-based phonological oppositions by native Estonians and non-native speakers with Russian-language background. The short/long category boundary was examined by varying the duration of a vowel in three contexts involving isolated vowels (V vs. VV), one-syllable nonsense words (CVC vs. CVVC), and two-syllable real words (CVCV vs. CVVCV). Since vowel duration serves to distinguish lexical minimal pairs in Estonian but not in Russian, L1 and L2 subjects are expected to employ different perceptual strategies in a short/long categorization task. In particular, location and width of category boundaries as well as consistency of categorization are likely to vary between the groups. The results showed that L2 subjects were quite successful in distinguishing the Estonian short/long categories despite the non-categorical use of the duration cue in their native language. As a rule, the L2 subjects demonstrated (1) category boundaries at longer durations, (2) larger width of category boundaries, and (3) lower consistency of responses compared to those of the L1 group. The perceptual strategies of L2 subjects might be based on the continuous auditory perception of the salient duration cue, or on the variable duration patterns associated with word stress in their L1, or on a combination of both strategies.
Experimental phonetic studies examine the extent to which Polish learners of English acquire phonological processes occurring at word boundaries in the target language. In particular, we look at linking of vowel-initial words and the suppression of stop release in word-final stops. Our results suggest that glottalization of vowels, which blocks linking of initial vowels, and coda stop release production, both constitute L1 phonological interference that learners must overcome. The phonology of these seemingly unrelated effects may be unified in the Onset Prominence framework, in which parametric representational mechanisms govern the extent of phonetic cohesion between segments and the formation of prosodic boundaries. Implications for the oft-invoked notion of cross-language phonological similarity are also discussed.
Production and Perception of Syllable Structure in Second-language Speech
Production and perception of syllables in a second language (L2) that has relatively complex syllable structure, such as English, is expected to be difficult for native speakers of a language with relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. A series of experiments investigated the perception, production, and learning of English syllables by native Japanese speakers. Results showed that Japanese speakers' ability to count syllables in spoken English words is closely related to the syllable complexity of the stimuli, while their production of English words showed more instances of epenthetic vowels for words containing voiced than voiceless consonants. In addition, improved skills in syllable perception did not lead to an improvement in production ability. Together, these results suggest that native Japanese speakers have considerable difficulties in both production and perception of syllables in spoken English, but the relationship between L2 syllable production and perception does not appear to be straightforward.
English vowel perception by Polish advanced learners of English
Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 2018
This article examines English vowel perception by advanced Polish learners of English in a formal classroom setting (i.e., they learnt English as a foreign language in school while living in Poland). The stimuli included 11 English noncewords in bilabial (/bVb/), alveolar (/dVd/) and velar (/gVg/) contexts. The participants, 35 first-year English majors, were examined during the performance of three tasks with English vowels: a categorial discrimination oddity task, an L1 assimilation task (categorization and goodness rating) and a task involving rating the (dis-)similarities between pairs of English vowels. The results showed a variety of assimilation types according to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) and the expected performance in a discrimination task. The more difficult it was to discriminate between two given vowels, the more similar these vowels were judged to be. Vowel contrasts involving height distinctions were easier to discriminate than vowel contrasts with tongue advancement distinctions. The results also revealed that the place of articulation of neighboring consonants had little effect on the perceptibility of the tested English vowels, unlike in the case of lower proficiency learners.Unlike previous results for naïve listeners, the present results for advanced learners showed no adherence to the principles of the Natural Referent Vowel framework. Generally, the perception of English vowels by these Polish advanced learners of English conformed with PAM’s predictions, but differed from vowel perception by naïve listeners and lower-proficiency learners.
Listeners' knowledge of phonological universals: evidence from nasal clusters
Phonology, 2009
Optimality Theory explains typological markedness implications by proposing that all speakers possess universal constraints penalising marked structures, irrespective of the evidence provided by their language (Prince & Smolensky 2004). The account of phonological perception sketched here entails that markedness constraints reveal their presence by inducing perceptual ‘repairs’ to structures ungrammatical in the hearer's language. As onset clusters of falling sonority are typologically marked relative to those of rising sonority (Greenberg 1978), we examine English speakers' perception of nasal-initial clusters, which are lacking in English. We find greater accuracy for rising-sonority clusters, evidencing knowledge of markedness constraints favouring such onset clusters. The misperception of sonority falls cannot be accounted for by stimulus artefacts (the materials are perceived accurately by speakers of Russian, a language allowing nasal-initial clusters) nor by phonetic ...
Social and Linguistic Speech Prosody
2014
The Estonian quantity system involves three contrastive patterns referred to as short (Q1), long (Q2) and overlong (Q3) quantity degrees. Our previous studies have shown that for L2 learners the distinction between Q2 and Q3 is a difficult task in both production and perception. While Q1 and Q2 structures are always distinguished in the orthography, this is not the case in most Q2 and Q3 words excluding the words with plosives between first and second syllable vowels (see examples later in the text). Thus, the orthography might be the reason for the use of the same L2 production pattern for both Q2 and Q3. The current paper studies the role of L2 orthographic input on the L2 production of Estonian quantity degrees by two groups of subjects with different language backgrounds: Finnish and Russian. The material used in the study involves word structures with and without orthographic manifestation of quantity contrasts. The results confirm the role of Estonian orthography on the L2 pro...
Categorical Perception and Production of Polish-English Stop Consonants
2018
Given previous work on categorical perception of speech sounds across two languages, one may most reasonably infer that bilinguals do perceive phonemes differently than do monolinguals. The magnitude of this difference in perception is a combination of factors, but mainly a matter of the age of exposure, language dominance, and experience in a given language. The present study applies these principles to Polish and English. A group of four early Polish-English bilinguals (AO < 12) and five late Polish-English bilinguals (AO > 12) was recruited for the study. Seven native speakers of English served as controls. The present study extends beyond categorical perception to production to investigate the change in production patterns based on the language being spoken. Furthermore, a potential linkage between perception and production is discussed.