Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4534-4543
Author(s):  
Wei Hu ◽  
Sha Tao ◽  
Mingshuang Li ◽  
Chang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Vowel Identification ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Perceptual Distance ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Chinese Counterpart ◽  
Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

scholarly journals Learning two languages from birth shapes pre-attentive processing of vowel categories: Electrophysiological correlates of vowel discrimination in monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 526-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
MONIKA MOLNAR ◽  
LINDA POLKA ◽  
SHARI BAUM ◽  
KARSTEN STEINHAUER
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Native Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Language Context ◽  
Vowel Categories

Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we measured pre-attentive processing involved in native vowel perception as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) in monolingual and simultaneous bilingual (SB) users of Canadian English and Canadian French in response to various pairings of four vowels: English /u/, French /u/, French /y/, and a control /y/. The monolingual listeners exhibited a discrimination pattern that was shaped by their native language experience. The SB listeners, on the other hand, exhibited a MMN pattern that was distinct from both monolingual listener groups, suggesting that the SB pre-attentive system is tuned to access sub-phonemic detail with respect to both input languages, including detail that is not readily accessed by either of their monolingual peers. Additionally, simultaneous bilinguals exhibited sensitivity to language context generated by the standard vowel in the MMN paradigm. The automatic access to fine phonetic detail may aid SB listeners to rapidly adjust their perception to the variable listening conditions that they frequently encounter.

Moving towards a bilingual baseline in second language phonetic research

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Sakai
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Comparison Group ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Target Structure ◽  
Cue Weighting ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Variable Performance

Abstract This investigation compared adult sequential bilinguals and native speakers (NSs) with the intention of determining if bilinguals are an appropriate comparison group for second language (L2) learners in L2 phonetic research. To that end, 16 Spanish-English bilinguals were compared to 20 NSs of English on their perception and production of two English vowels. In perception, both groups had a similar category boundary and acoustic cue weighting. In production, both groups produced distinct vowels that were highly intelligible, although the bilinguals produced the phonemes closer together in the vowel space and had more variable performance than the NSs. The inspection of these two participant groups reveals that bilinguals have the ability to perceive and produce a difficult L2 phonemic contrast, with slight and inconsequential differences when compared to NSs. Thus, I argue that bilinguals who have acquired a target structure are an apt comparison group in L2 phonetic experiments.

scholarly journals Vowel Space Area of Minangkabau Learners of English

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-164
Author(s):  
Rudha Widagsa ◽  
Arum Perwitasari ◽  
Mezia Kemala Sari
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Formant Frequencies ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Production Experiment

Vowel spacearea (VSA) represents kinematic movements of the articulators and measures speech intelligibility. By looking at the vowel space area, the current study intends to examine the role of Minangkabau in the acquisition of English as a second language. We conducted a speech production experiment involving ten English monophthongs in isolated sentences. We measured the formant frequencies (F1/F2) values and computed the vowel quadrilateral. The results showed that the Minangkabau learners of English did not have similar VSA pattern when compared to the native English speakers. They did not open the jaws and move the tongues as similar as the native English speakers in pronouncing English vowels. The results were discussed in the area of second language acquisition.

Perceptual cue weighting in L1 and L2 Chinese: An investigation of aspiration and frication in Chinese obstruents by Danish learners

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-83
Author(s):  
Mengzhu Yan ◽  
Marjoleine Sloos
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Cue Weighting ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
L1 And L2

AbstractAn important part of second language acquisition of sound systems involves the distinction between phoneme contrasts that exist in L2 but not in L1. However, L1 and L2 listeners do not always use the same acoustic cues to perceptually distinguish the contrasts. Most studies concentrate on vowel perception, but perceptual cue weighting in consonants is somewhat under-investigated, although equally relevant. This article investigates the cue-weighting of Chinese /t th ts tsh/ by L1 and Danish L2 listeners. The four phonemes are contrastive, and distinguished in aspiration, frication or both. Moreover, Chinese /th ts tsh/ acoustically all overlap with a single phoneme in Danish /ts/, variably realized as [ts] ~ [th], which make it notoriously difficult to acquire the contrasts. We conducted a cue-weighting experiment to investigate how Danish and Chinese listeners use aspiration and frication to perceptually categorize these Chinese sounds. Our results show that Danish learners are not as sensitive as native Chinese to the deciding cues to distinguish the Chinese phoneme contrasts. This study sheds light on L2 sound acquisition in which different phonemes in the target L2 language correspond to a single but variable phoneme in the native language.

Factors affecting the recognition of words in a second language

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Meador ◽  
James E. Flege ◽  
Ian R. A. Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L1 Use

This study examined the recognition of English words by groups of native speakers of Italian who differed in age of arrival in Canada and amount of continued native language use. The dependent variable was the number of words correctly repeated in English sentences presented in noise. Significantly higher word recognition scores were obtained for early than late bilinguals, and for early bilinguals who used Italian seldom than for early bilinguals who used Italian relatively often. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that the native Italian participants' ability to perceive English vowels and consonants accounted for a significant amount of variance in the word-recognition scores independently of age of arrival, amount of L1 use, and length of residence in Canada. The native language use effect was interpreted to have arisen from differences in the extent to which the early bilinguals' Italian phonetic system influenced the representations they developed for English vowels and consonants.

Second language learners develop non-native lexical processing biases

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Wiener
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L1 And L2

AbstractInfants develop language-specific biases favoring either consonantal or vocalic information. These phonological biases affect various levels of spoken-language recognition in children and adults. This study explored whether adults who speak a second language (L2) apply phonological biases during L2 lexical processing, and whether the biases applied are those of the native language (L1), or those appropriate for the L2. Two word reconstruction experiments were carried out in English and Mandarin Chinese. L1 and L2 speakers of English demonstrated a consonantal bias by changing English vowels faster than consonants. L1 and L2 speakers of Mandarin demonstrated a vocalic bias by changing Mandarin consonants faster than vowels. Even relatively late L2 classroom learners whose L1 triggers a consonantal bias (English) exhibited a vocalic bias in their L2 (Mandarin). Lexically related processing biases are thus determined by the phonological and lexical characteristics of the stimuli being processed and not solely by listeners’ L1.

scholarly journals Production of Estonian vowels by Finnish speakers

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Einar Meister ◽  
Lya Meister
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Successful Strategy ◽  
Phonetic Similarity ◽  
Category O ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Tongue Position ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Vowel Categories

In the study, we examined the production of Estonian vowel categories by second language (L2) speakers of Estonian (native language Finnish) and compared them to those of native Estonian (L1) speakers. The vowel systems of the two languages are very similar: all eight Finnish vowels have close counterparts in Estonian, though Estonian has one more vowel category. The vowels for acoustic analysis were extracted from the target words embedded in sentences read by both L1 and L2 informants. The results showed that using the native Finnish vowel patterns for the Estonian counterparts has been a successful strategy – due to phonetic similarity of the shared vowels in the two languages, the L2 vowels assimilate well to Finnish L1 vowel categories. The L2 learners have acquired proper tongue position for the new vowel category /õ/ in tongue height and in front-back dimension, but deviate from the L1 speakers in use of the lip rounding gesture. Kokkuvõte. Einar Meister ja Lya Meister: Eesti vokaalid soome emakeelega keelejuhtide häälduses. Artiklis uuriti soome emakeelega keelejuhtide eesti vokaalide hääldust ja võrreldi seda eesti emakeelega keelejuhtide hääldusega. Eesti ja soome vokaalisüsteemid on väga sarnased – kõigil soome vokaalidel on eesti keeles foneetiliselt lähedane vaste. Eesti keeles on lisaks veel üks vokaalikategooria, s.o ümardamata keskkõrge tagavokaal /õ/. Uuringus kasutati eesti ja soome emakeelega keelejuhtide loetud samu lauseid, vokaalide akustiliseks analüüsiks eraldati neist rõhulised vokaalid. Kõigi vokaalide puhul leiti kolme formandi sagedused, millest esimene (F1) on seotud keele kõrgusega, teine (F2) keele ees-tagapoolsusega ja kolmas (F3) huulte ümardatusega. Tulemused näitasid, et (1) tänu soome vokaalide foneetilisele sarnasusele vastavate eesti vokaalidega oli soome emakeelega kõnelejate eesti vokaalide hääldus lähedane eesti emakeelega keelejuhtidele; (2) on omandatud küll /õ/-vokaali hääldusasend nii keele kõrguse (F1) kui ka ees-tagapoolsuse (F2) teljel, kuid F3 väärtuste põhjal paigutub soomlaste hääldatud /õ/ ümarate vokaalide rühma. Märksõnad: eesti keel, soome keel, L2, vokaalide hääldus, akustiline analüüs

scholarly journals Forming New Vowel Categories in Second Language Speech: The Case of Polish Learners' Production of English /I/ and /e/

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 85-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Rojczyk
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Vowel Categories ◽  
English I

The paper concentrates on formation of L2 English vowel categories in the speech of Polish learners. More specifically, it compares distribution of two English categories - /I/ and /e/ relative to neighbouring Polish vowels. 43 participants recorded Polish and English vowels in a /bVt/ context. First two formants were measured at a vowel midpoint and plotted on a vowel plane. The results reveal that while a separate /I/ category is formed fairly effectively in Polish learners pronunciation of English, a category of /e/ is almost completely subsumed by a Polish vowel /ϵ/

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