Some effects of the phonological background on EFL phonetic production, among french speaking students (original) (raw)
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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.
A Study on English Phonetic Acquisition from the Perspective of Transfer Theory
IRA International Journal of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies
English, as an international lingual Franca, has become one of the most widely-used languages in the world. Mastering English doesn't just mean getting information from all over the world; it also means communicating and expressing yourself with people from different cultural backgrounds. So far, EFL has received much attention in many counties. As an indispensable part of language acquisition, pronunciation learning should be valued at the beginning of foreign language study, for example, the kindergarten stage. This paper aims to illustrate the negative transfer of the mother tongue on English pronunciation acquisition from the segmental and suprasegmental aspects. Based on the studies and analysis, it hopes to inspire teachers to arouse awareness of the differences between English and Chinese pronunciation among learners, making students acquire native-like pronunciation actively and positively. It’s suggested that EFL learners can their pronunciation and intonation through p...
L1 Phonology Transfer To L2 Phonology: The Effect Of Phonological Environment
9 th INTERNATIONAL METU POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE ON LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING SELECTED PAPERS
In the last fifty years, there have been many studies concentrating on L1 phonology transfer to L2 phonology and its effects on the production and the pronunciation of sounds. Some of these studies have shown that different phonemic status of a sound in the native and the target language creates problems for the learners and speakers of that language [Lado (1968), Briere (1966) and James (1988)]. Taking the findings of these studies into consideration, this paper aims at shedding some light upon the pronunciation problems of Turkish speakers of English in terms of the production of /w/. Despite the common belief in its non-existence in Turkish language, the study has found out that [w] (voiced bilabial glide) sound exists in Turkish as an allophone of the sound /v/ (voiced labiodental fricative) in certain environments. Since they have different status in Turkish and English, Turkish speakers of English tend to transfer their native language pronunciation habits to the target language which leads to pronunciation errors. This novel finding has practical implications for such problems and contributions to the areas such as second/foreign language teaching/learning, material development and pre-service teacher training. Key words: Phonology, allophone, phoneme, second/foreign language teaching
2020
The present study addresses language contact processes in which the phonetic systems of the languages that bilinguals speak interact. Specifically, language transfer with respect to English and German was examined, focusing on native German speakers (L1) who learned English as a second language (L2). It employed as its central method an analysis of their vowel systems, both language-specifically and cross-linguistically. Extralinguistic variables were also considered, ranging from speakers’ age of acquisition (AOA) of English to their length of residence in an English-speaking environment to their consideration of home. Results indicated statistically significant differences between speakers’ production of /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ for English and German, following a general trend of English productions as lower and more fronted than their German counterparts. Wide variability among participants produced inconsistent results, underscoring the complexity of speakers’ vowel systems as a result of t...
Speech Communication, 2003
The underlying premise of this study was that the two phonetic subsystems of a bilingual interact. The study tested the hypothesis that the vowels a bilingual produces in a second language (L2) may differ from vowels produced by monolingual native speakers of the L2 as the result of either of two mechanisms: phonetic category assimilation or phonetic category dissimilation. Earlier work revealed that native speakers of Italian identify English /ei/ tokens as instances of the Italian /e/ category even though English /ei/ is produced with more tongue movement than Italian /e/ is. Acoustic analyses in the present study examined /ei/s produced by four groups of Italian–English bilinguals who differed according to their age of arrival in Canada from Italy (early versus late) and frequency of continued Italian use (low-L1-use versus high-L1-use). Early bilinguals who seldom used Italian (Early-low) were found to produce English /ei/ with significantly more movement than native English speakers. However, both groups of late bilinguals (Late-low, Late-high) tended to produced /ei/ with less movement than NE speakers. The exaggerated movement in /ei/s produced by the Early-low group participants was attributed to the dissimilation of a phonetic category they formed for English /ei/ from Italian /e/. The undershoot of movement in /ei/s produced by late bilinguals, on the other hand, was attributed to their failure to establish a new category for English /ei/, which led to the merger of the phonetic properties of English /ei/ and Italian /e/.
In bilinguals and second language learners, the native (L1) and nonnative (L2) languages coexist and interact. The L1 influences L2 production via forward transfer, as is seen with foreign accents. However, language transfer is bidirectional: even brief experience with an L2 can affect L1 production, via backward transfer. Here, we review the growing literature on backward transfer at the phonetic level and identify various factors that modulate it. Indeed, a multitude of interrelated factors have been shown to determine the strength of backward transfer, including L2 related factors (age of L2 acquisition, L2 pronunciation skill and proficiency, stage of learning, immersion), L1 related factors (amount and circumstances of L1 use), and factors related to both L1 and L2 (language similarity and individual differences). Controlled longitudinal, laboratory studies are required in conjunction with naturalistic ones to tease apart the influences of these different factors on L1 speech.
International Journal of English Studies, 2001
In the ever-growing literature dealing with the acquisition by adults of the phonetics and phonology of a foreign language (FL), research has tried to provide an answer to the complex nature of cross-language transfer. The fact that despite idiosyncratic differences and sociolinguistic variation most adults learners of a foreign language (FL) speak with an accent which is a reflection of their native language (NL) and that their progress is impaired at a certain stage prompted a host of questions such as whether adults follow identical or different paths of development in their approach to a foreign language, whether those speaking the same native language are able to identify target language categories in the same way, whether perception and production are interdependent, the nature of the learning abilities and the interplay of transfer with universals. These and other problems relating to foreign language speech have been approached from different angles and theoretical frameworks (see Leather & James (1 99 1) for an overview, and more recently Leather (1999). The research reported here, based on the oral production of sixty-five Spanish adult learners of English as a FL, tries to shed some light on one of well-known problems related to the acquisition of a foreign language by non-native speakers: the analysis of different types of phonological processes shaping the fossilised interlanguage (IL) of adult FL learners in order to see a) whether they are adhered to by those adult learners sharing identical L1; b) whether
Exploring the L1-L2 Relationship in the L2 Acquisition of Prosody
Proceedings of First and Second …, 2009
This paper explores the L1-L2 relationship in the L2 acquisition of prosody. The first part of the paper outlines a method to investigate transfer effects in L2 prosody. Then, we report on an experiment in which we examined native and non-native speakers' use of (de)accentuation to prosodically signal information status in Dutch and French. With the aid of a picture description task in which the information value of the discourse referents was varied experimentally, we elicited both L1 and L2 data from 20 French-speaking learners of Dutch and 20 Dutch-speaking learners of French. The main research question was whether there would be any relationship between the typological distance between the learners' L1 and L2
Prosodic transfer from L1 to L2. Theoretical and methodological issues
Nouveaux cahiers de linguistique …, 2007
Much research on the acquisition of phonological skills in a second/foreign language has hitherto been concerned with the phonemes of the target language, thereby disregarding suprasegmentals. The first part of this paper reviews past research on the acquisition of prosody, with special emphasis on the role of the mother tongue in the learning process. Then we set out to examine the methods and tools that were used in order to investigate prosodic transfer. The discussion leads us to propose an alternative method combining text-based contrastive analysis, systembased contrastive analysis and contrastive interlanguage analysis. This method is put to the test in a study of (pitch) accent in L2 Dutch and L2 French.