scholarly journals Processing foreign-accented speech in a second language: Evidence from ERPs during sentence comprehension in bilinguals

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 912-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARAH GREY ◽  
LAURA C. SCHUBEL ◽  
JAMES M. MCQUEEN ◽  
JANET G. VAN HELL
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
American English ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Delayed Onset ◽  
Bilingual Speaker

This study examined electrophysiological correlates of sentence comprehension of native-accented and foreign-accented speech in a second language (L2), for sentences produced in a foreign accent different from that associated with the listeners' L1. Bilingual speaker-listeners process different accents in their L2 conversations, but the effects on real-time L2 sentence comprehension are unknown. Dutch–English bilinguals listened to native American-English accented sentences and foreign (and for them unfamiliarly-accented) Chinese-English accented sentences while EEG was recorded. Behavioral sentence comprehension was highly accurate for both native-accented and foreign-accented sentences. ERPs showed different patterns for L2 grammar and semantic processing of native- and foreign-accented speech. For grammar, only native-accented speech elicited an Nref. For semantics, both native- and foreign-accented speech elicited an N400 effect, but with a delayed onset across both accent conditions. These findings suggest that the way listeners comprehend native- and foreign-accented sentences in their L2 depends on their familiarity with the accent.

Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaori Idemaru ◽  
Peipei Wei ◽  
Lucy Gubbins
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
First Language ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Chinese Speakers

This study reports an exploratory analysis of the acoustic characteristics of second language (L2) speech which give rise to the perception of a foreign accent. Japanese speech samples were collected from American English and Mandarin Chinese speakers ( n = 16 in each group) studying Japanese. The L2 participants and native speakers ( n = 10) provided speech samples modeling after six short sentences. Segmental (vowels and stops) and prosodic features (rhythm, tone, and fluency) were examined. Native Japanese listeners ( n = 10) rated the samples with regard to degrees of foreign accent. The analyses predicting accent ratings based on the acoustic measurements indicated that one of the prosodic features in particular, tone (defined as high and low patterns of pitch accent and intonation in this study), plays an important role in robustly predicting accent rating in L2 Japanese across the two first language (L1) backgrounds. These results were consistent with the prediction based on phonological and phonetic comparisons between Japanese and English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. The results also revealed L1-specific predictors of perceived accent in Japanese. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature that examines sources of perceived foreign accent.

Applying the Competition Model to bilingualism

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Macwhinney
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Competition Model ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Basic Finding ◽  
Weakened Form

This special issue brings together a set of four papers devoted to the experimental study of sentence processing by bilinguals in their second language. The basic finding reported in this research is that, in many cases, learners transfer their LI sentence processing strategies onto sentence processing in L2. Moreover, the influence of this transfer can be detected in weakened form even in fluent bilinguals who have spoken L2 for many years. In effect, these studies report on a kind of comprehension analog to “foreign accent” that first came to light during work on sentence comprehension within the framework of the Competition Model of Bates and MacWhinney (1982).

scholarly journals Concurrent use of animacy and event-knowledge during comprehension: Evidence from event-related potentials

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Vega-Mendoza ◽  
Martin John Pickering ◽  
Mante S. Nieuwland
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Event Knowledge ◽  
Related Potentials

In two ERP experiments, we investigated whether readers prioritize animacy over real-world event-knowledge during sentence comprehension. We used the paradigm of Paczynski and Kuperberg (2012), who argued that animacy is prioritized based on the observations that the ‘related anomaly effect’ (reduced N400s for context-related anomalous words compared to unrelated words) does not occur for animacy violations, and that animacy violations but not relatedness violations elicit P600 effects. Participants read passive sentences with plausible agents (e.g., The prescription for the mental disorder was written by the psychiatrist) or implausible agents that varied in animacy and semantic relatedness (schizophrenic/guard/pill/fence). In Experiment 1 (with a plausibility judgment task), plausible sentences elicited smaller N400s relative to all types of implausible sentences. Moreover, animate words elicited smaller N400s than inanimate words, and related words elicited smaller N400s than unrelated words. Crucially, at the P600 time-window, we observed more positive ERPs for animate than inanimate words and for related than unrelated words at anterior regions. In Experiment 2 (with no judgment task), we observed an N400 effect with animacy violations, but no other effects. Taken together, the results of our experiments fail to support a prioritized role of animacy information over real-world event-knowledge, but they support an interactive, constraint-based view on incremental semantic processing.

Processing a second language: late learners' comprehension mechanisms as revealed by event-related brain potentials

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Hahne ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Anterior Negativity

Sentence comprehension in second language (L2) learners was examined using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Native Japanese speakers who had learned German as a second language after puberty listened to German sentences which were either correct, semantically incorrect, syntactically incorrect or both semantically and syntactically incorrect. Brain responses were registered while participants listened to these sentences. Grammaticality judgments required after each sentence revealed that their overall performance was not perfect but clearly above chance. When comparing the L2-learners' brain responses to those of native listeners, a variety of differences were observed. Whereas semantically incorrect sentences showed an ERP pattern similar to that of native listeners (a centro-parietal N400-effect), correct sentences elicited a greater positivity in L2-learners than in native listeners, possibly in reflection of greater difficulties in syntactic integration. For sentences containing a phrase structure violation, L2-learners did not show significant modulations of the syntax-related ERP components usually seen in native listeners (i.e. the early anterior negativity and the P600). Furthermore, sentences containing a pure semantic or a combined syntactic and semantic violation elicited a late right anterior-central negativity, an effect which has not been observed for native language processing. The topography of the effect may suggest that these additional processes are based on conceptual-semantic rather than on lexical-semantic aspects.

Tuning out tone errors? Native listeners do not down-weight tones when hearing unsystematic tone errors in foreign-accented Mandarin

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Pelzl ◽  
Matthew T. Carlson ◽  
Taomei Guo ◽  
Carrie N. Jackson ◽  
Janet G. van Hell
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Priming Task ◽  
Mandarin Speakers ◽  
Tuning Out

AbstractListeners can adapt to errors in foreign-accented speech, but not all errors are alike. We investigated whether exposure to unsystematic tone errors in second language Mandarin impacts responses to accurately produced words. Native Mandarin speakers completed a cross-modal priming task with words produced by foreign-accented talkers who either produced consistently correct tones, or frequent tone errors. Facilitation from primes bearing correct tones was unaffected by the presence of tone errors elsewhere in the talker's speech. However, primes bearing tone errors inhibited recognition of real words and elicited stronger accentedness ratings. We consider theoretical implications for tone in foreign-accent adaptation.

Native English speakers’ structural alignment mediated by foreign-accented speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunjin Chun ◽  
Julia Barrow ◽  
Edith Kaan
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
American English ◽  
Structural Alignment ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Perceived Familiarity

AbstractWith the growth of language variation it is becoming increasingly important to understand how monolingual speakers’ language processing can differ when responding to various speakers. This study investigated native English speakers’ structural alignment to different accents of English (American, Korean, and Indian speaker of English) using a picture description paradigm. More specifically, we explored the effect of accent type and familiarity with a speaker’s accent on syntactic alignment. American-English speaking participants were primed less for a PO construction when listening to a native American-English speaker than in response to English speakers with a non-American accent (Korean and Indian English). A similar pattern was observed in the analysis using perceived familiarity with accents. These results support the claim that social factors, (e. g., speakers’ accents or perceived familiarity with the accents) can automatically influence language processing, and should be taken into consideration for psycholinguistics theoretical accounts of syntactic priming.

Speech and Span: Working Memory Capacity Impacts the Use of Animacy but Not of World Knowledge during Spoken Sentence Comprehension

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2886-2898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroko Nakano ◽  
Clifford Saron ◽  
Tamara Y. Swaab
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Thematic Relations ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
On Line

We present results from a study demonstrating that high- and low-span listeners show qualitatively different brain responses when comprehending simple active sentences. Participants listened to naturally produced sentences in three conditions in which the plausibility of thematic relations was manipulated, for instance: The dog(1)/The poet(2)/The box(3) is biting the mailman. Event-related potentials were recorded to the first noun, the verb, and the second noun in all three conditions. In (2), the thematic relations between the words in the sentence are less expected given our world knowledge, and this resulted in an N400 effect of semantic processing difficulty to the second noun for both high- and low-span subjects. In (3), the inanimate first noun cannot be the agent of the verb. Only high-span subjects showed an effect of animacy on the sentence-initial nouns, evident from a larger anterior negative shift to inanimate than animate nouns. Furthermore, to the thematically violated verbs (3), low-span subjects showed an N400, whereas high-span subjects generated a P600. We suggest that this P600 effect to the thematically violated verb may be related to processing costs resulting from a conflict between the provisional thematic roles assigned as a function of the inanimate sentence-initial noun, and the actual (animate) agent required by the verb. We further argue that low-span subjects lag behind those with high span in their use of animacy, but not real-world knowledge in the on-line computation of thematic roles in spoken language comprehension.

scholarly journals Measuring Foreign Accent Strength in English

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn Wieling ◽  
Jelke Bloem ◽  
Kaitlin Mignella ◽  
Mona Timmermeister ◽  
John Nerbonne
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American English ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Levenshtein Distance ◽  
Foreign Accents

With an eye toward measuring the strength of foreign accents in American English, we evaluate the suitability of a modified version of the Levenshtein distance for comparing (the phonetic transcriptions of) accented pronunciations. Although this measure has been used successfully inter alia to study the differences among dialect pronunciations, it has not been applied to studying foreign accents. Here, we use it to compare the pronunciation of non-native English speakers to native American English speech. Our results indicate that the Levenshtein distance is a valid native-likeness measurement, as it correlates strongly (r = -0.81) with the average “native-like” judgments given by more than 1000 native American English raters.

The role of cross-linguistic stress pattern frequency and word similarity on the acquisition of English stress pattern by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Post Silveira
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
American English ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Target Language ◽  
English As Second Language ◽  
Word Similarity ◽  
L1 Transfer

This is a preliminary study in which we investigate the acquisition of English as second language (L2[1]) word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1[2]). In this paper, we show results of a multiple choice forced choice perception test in which native speakers of American English and native speakers of Dutch judged the production of English words bearing pre-final stress that were both cognates and non-cognates with BP words. The tokens were produced by native speakers of American English and by Brazilians that speak English as a second language. The results have shown that American and Dutch listeners were consistent in their judgments on native and non-native stress productions and both speakers' groups produced variation in stress in relation to the canonical pattern. However, the variability found in American English points to the prosodic patterns of English and the variability found in Brazilian English points to the stress patterns of Portuguese. It occurs especially in words whose forms activate neighboring similar words in the L1. Transfer from the L1 appears both at segmental and prosodic levels in BP English. [1] L2 stands for second language, foreign language, target language. [2] L1 stands for first language, mother tongue, source language.

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