scholarly journals Investigating Native English Speakers’ Perception of Novel Arabic Phonemes after First Exposure

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hala Alwohaibi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Prior Exposure ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Segmental Phonology ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
L2 Perception ◽  
English Group

This study reports on an experiment carried out to investigate native English speakers' perception of selected Arabic phonemes after first exposure to a controlled naturalistic input of a weather report. It closely follows Brown's model of L2 speech perception and L1 feature geometry (1998), which seeks to relate theories of segmental phonology to L2 speech perception and the first exposure treatment of Gullberg et al. (2010). Eight Arabic sounds were carefully selected for the experiment: /b/-/d/ which are found in both English and Arabic; /x/-/ɣ/ which are not found in English but are distinguished by features which are distinctive in English [dorsal, voice, continuant], and lastly the contrastive pairs /ʔ/-/ʕ/ and /h/-/ħ/, where the latter phoneme in each pair is alien to the phonemic inventory of English. These pairs are distinguished by the feature [RTR (retracted tongue root)] which is lacking in the feature geometry of English. Participants were divided into an Arabic control group, English+ group with prior exposure to Arabic, and an English group with no prior exposure to Arabic. The results from an AX discrimination task confirmed Brown's hypothesis that L2 perception of non-native contrasts is constrained by the L1 feature geometry.

scholarly journals Production of Vowel /ə/ in Sundanese by Japanese Native Speakers in First Exposure

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-231
Author(s):  
Rike Febriyanti ◽  
Lailatul Husna
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Segmental Phonology ◽  
Speech Data ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
L2 Perception

The research described native Japanese speakers’ perception of Sundanese vowel /ə/ after the first exposure to a controlled naturalistic input of conversation. The research worked in respect of Brown’s model of L2 speech perception and L1 feature geometry, which sought to relate theories of segmental phonology to L2 speech perception and the first exposure treatment. Some Sundanese native speakers conducted a conversation that contained the /ə/ vowel in front of five Japanese native speakers with no prior exposure to Sundanese. Therefore, the researchers had collected speech data from five L1 Japanese native speakers (three males, two females, Mage = 22, SD = 2,1). The Japanese were asked to listen to the short conversation and imitate vowel /ə/, which did not exist in the Japanese language vowel inventory. The observation confirmed Brown’s hypothesis that L2 perception of /ə/ vowel was constrained by the L1 feature geometry. L1 Japanese language phonological properties worked as a perceptual filter to Sundanese L2 input, causing the Japanese L2 learners to perceive only the vowel discriminated by phonological features presented in Sundanese. The data show that the Japanese native speakers are able to overcome the perceptual filters so they can produce various frequencies of vowel /ə/, which are statistically similar to the frequency produced by Sundanese native speakers. The research implies that the possibility of learning new sounds from an entirely new language is wide open when the learner is able to pass through the L1 perceptual filter. 

F0 patterns of tone versus non-tone languages: The case of Vietnamese speakers of English

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-121
Author(s):  
Anh-Thư T Nguyễn
Keyword(s):  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Australian English ◽  
Vietnamese Speakers

This article reports a study that aimed to find out whether F0 patterns of L2 English produced by Vietnamese speakers are different to those of native English speakers, whether the non-native F0 patterns are transferred from Vietnamese, and to what extent English and Vietnamese F0 profiles differ. Ten native/L1 Australian English speakers, 20 Vietnamese speakers of English (10 beginners and 10 advanced speakers) and a control group of four native/L1 Vietnamese speakers were included. The F0 profiles (F0 maximum, F0 minimum, F0 range, F0 mean and F0 standard deviation at three levels: utterance, syllable and phoneme) were obtained from a set of 10 English sentences and 20 Vietnamese utterances. The results showed that F0 patterns of beginning-level L2 English are systematically different from those of native English speakers, which can be transferred from their native tone language. Nevertheless, the advanced speakers’ ability to produce native-like F0 patterns indicates the effect of language learning experience on prosodic acquisition. The data and results of this study contribute to the understanding of the process and nature of second language acquisition.

scholarly journals Assessing the Impact of Morphological Knowledge on Lexical Acquisition and Processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Baraa A. Rajab
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Variability ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Lexical Acquisition ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Persistent Problem ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Group I ◽  
The Impact

The mastery of morphological structure and vocabulary acquisition are significantly associated. However, the association between the abilities of L2 learners to manipulate morphological elements and develop vocabulary size with native Arabic speakers needs to be assessed. This study assesses the impact of morphological knowledge on lexical acquisition and processing among English-speaking learners of Arabic. The study focused on gender (masculine/feminine) and the complete number system (singular/dual/plural) by native English speakers. The error rates and error patterns were analysed carefully to provide insight into the learner’s interlanguage grammar through the experiment. The experimental study design was used. The study sample included 40 of L2 Arabic speakers from Arabic language courses at major universities in Northern Virginia and Maryland. These were native English speakers with no exposure to Arabic before their enrolment in the university. The sample was divided into three groups (Group I, individual in the second year of Arabic program, Group II, individual in 3rd or 4th year of the program, and Group III control group, five native speakers of Arabic). Different tasks were presented to the groups, where PsychoPy software was used for task presentation. Audacity Version 2.0 was audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded by the experimenter. The production and comprehension test revealed that morphological problems are prevalent at the advanced proficiency level. It showed the role of animacy for the morphological variability and higher agreement accuracy for human targets. It concluded that morphological variability in L2 Arabic remains a persistent problem even at advanced levels of proficiency, extending to comprehension.

The Production of New and Similar Vowels by Adult German Learners of English

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ocke-Schwen Bohn ◽  
James Emil Flege
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Positive Effect

The study reported in this paper examined the effect of second language (L2) experience on the production of L2 vowels for which acoustic counterparts are either present or absent in the first language (L1). The hypothesis being tested was that amount of L2 experience would not affect L1 German speakers' production of the “similar” English vowels /i, l, ∈/, whereas English language experience would enable L1 Germans to produce an English-like /æ/, which has no counterpart in German. The predictions were tested in two experiments that compared the production of English /i, l, ∈, æ/ by two groups of L1 German speakers differing in English language experience and an L1 English control group. An acoustic experiment compared the three groups for spectral and temporal characteristics of the English vowels produced in /bVt/ words. The same tokens were assessed for intelligibility in a labeling experiment. The results of both experiments were largely consistent with the hypothesis. The experienced L2 speakers did not produce the similar English vowels /i, l, ∈/ more intelligibly than the inexperienced L2 speakers, not did experience have a positive effect on approximating the English acoustic norms for these similar vowels. The intelligibility results for the new vowel /æ/ did not clearly support the model. However, the acoustic comparisons showed that the experienced but not the inexperienced L2 speakers produced the new vowel /æ/ in much the same way as the native English speakers.

Second Language Perception of Mandarin Vowels and Tones

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-Chen Hao
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Relative Difficulty ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Tonal Language ◽  
Naive Group ◽  
Beginning Learners ◽  
Mandarin Vowels

This study examines the discrimination of Mandarin vowels and tones by native English speakers with varying amounts of Mandarin experience, aiming to investigate the relative difficulty of these two types of sounds for English speakers at different learning stages, and the source of their difficulty. Seventeen advanced learners of Mandarin (Ex group), eighteen beginning learners (InEx group), and eighteen English speakers naïve to Mandarin (Naïve group) participated in an AXB discrimination task. The stimuli were two Mandarin vowel contrasts, /li–ly/ and /lu–ly/, and two tonal contrasts, T1–T4 and T2–T3. The predicted difficulty for each contrast was hypothesized based on the assimilation of these sounds to English reported in previous work. The results showed that the Naïve group was more accurate with vowel contrasts than with tones, suggesting that non-tonal language speakers without any Mandarin training are less sensitive to tonal distinction than to vowels. The two learner groups, on the other hand, were highly accurate with all contrasts except for the T2–T3 pair, and achieved significantly higher accuracy than the Naïve group on /li–ly/ and T1–T4. This lends support to the view that experience in Mandarin improves English speakers’ sensitivity to tonal distinction, helping them discriminate some tones as accurately as vowels. However, all three groups achieved low accuracy in discriminating T2 and T3, suggesting that this contrast may be inherently difficult and resistant to improvement. This study shows that various factors in addition to the native language experience may affect the perception of non-native vowels and tones.

The Bubble Noise Technique for Speech Perception Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1653-1666
Author(s):  
Michael I. Mandel ◽  
Vikas Grover ◽  
Mengxuan Zhao ◽  
Jiyoung Choi ◽  
Valerie L. Shafer
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
American English ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Perception Training

Purpose The “bubble noise” technique has recently been introduced as a method to identify the regions in time–frequency maps (i.e., spectrograms) of speech that are especially important for listeners in speech recognition. This technique identifies regions of “importance” that are specific to the speech stimulus and the listener, thus permitting these regions to be compared across different listener groups. For example, in cross-linguistic and second-language (L2) speech perception, this method identifies differences in regions of importance in accomplishing decisions of phoneme category membership. This research note describes the application of bubble noise to the study of language learning for 3 different language pairs: Hindi English bilinguals' perception of the /v/–/w/ contrast in American English, native English speakers' perception of the tense/lax contrast for Korean fricatives and affricates, and native English speakers' perception of Mandarin lexical tone. Conclusion We demonstrate that this technique provides insight on what information in the speech signal is important for native/first-language listeners compared to nonnative/L2 listeners. Furthermore, the method can be used to examine whether L2 speech perception training is effective in bringing the listener's attention to the important cues.

scholarly journals ‘The moustache’ returns: referential metonymy acquisition in adult learners of English as an additional language (EAL)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
JOSEPHINE BOWERMAN ◽  
INGRID LOSSIUS FALKUM ◽  
NAUSICAA POUSCOULOUS
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learners ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Time Constraints ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Japanese Adult ◽  
L1 Acquisition

abstract Referential metonymy, e.g. ‘the moustache (= man with a moustache) sits down first’, appears early in L1 acquisition (Falkum, Recasens & Clark, 2017). Yet how does it emerge in pragmatically mature but linguistically developing adult L2 learners? We used one comprehension and two production tasks, based on Falkum and colleagues (2017), to investigate metonymy abilities in 34 Japanese adult learners of English as an additional language (EAL) and a control group of 31 native English speakers. We also examined how time constraints and exposure to examples of referential metonymy affected production. In the comprehension task, both EAL-learner and native-speaker participants chose metonymic readings at above chance levels. In both production tasks, all participants produced innovative metonyms. Additionally, the findings indicate that, in L2, exposure to examples dramatically increases metonymy production, while time pressure decreases it. The results suggest that participants can both comprehend and produce novel metonyms in L2, with a possible explicitness vs. production costs trade-off.

scholarly journals Why is “John Ran to the House” the Same as “John Went to the House Running” in Arabic?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Hanan M. Kabli
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Boundary Crossing ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L1 Influence ◽  
Advanced Proficiency ◽  
Group Control Group

The study explores how Arabic has the same conflation pattern characteristics as English even though it belongs to Verb-framed Languages. A focused-group approach is used to evaluate the effect of the first language (L1) and the potential role of proficiency in the acquisition of the English directional preposition ‘to’ with manner-of-motion to goal construction. One group consists of Saudi speakers at two levels of development; an intermediate and advanced proficiency levels; whereas, the second group (control group) comprises of English native speakers. Acceptability Judgment Task associated with video animation clips is designed to elicit participants’ judgments in the depicted event. Results indicated that the intermediate Saudi speakers accept the directional preposition ‘to’ with and without boundary-crossing event, as is the case of their L1, which was opposite for the advanced and native English speakers for the without boundary-crossing event. The advanced Saudi speakers accept the constructions of encoding the manner with the motion and expressing the manner as the complement depicting an appropriate description of the event, reflecting L1 influence. All the group’s judgment varies based on the acceptance to conflate the manner with the motion overexpressing manner as a complement in an event without boundary-crossing.

scholarly journals Present Perfect: Effects of Learning Environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 256
Author(s):  
Sato Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Classroom Environment ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
Contextual Support

In this study I investigated the influence of Japanese EFL environments on the acquisition of the English present perfect form by comparing Japanese native speakers who have lived abroad and returned to live in Japan (JRs) and those who have never been abroad (JNRs) with a control group of native English speakers (NESs). In Japanese classrooms, the present perfect is usually taught by focusing on three translation categories (completion, duration, and experience) along with certain durative adverbials (e.g., already, yet, and since). Using a gap-fill test, I looked at how Japanese–English translation styles, lexical aspect, and the presence of adverbials can affect learners’ use of the English present perfect. Results show more accurate present perfect use by JRs and NESs and the positive influence of the presence of durative adverbials. Pedagogical implications include the need for provisions of contextual support in teaching present perfect in the classroom environment 本研究は、日本のEFL環境における指導法がどのように現在完了形の使用に影響を与えるのかを調査した。日本のEFL環境では、現在完了形は完了・継続・経験の3用法に分類し日本語での説明を加えた指導がなされ、それぞれの用法に継続相の副詞表現を関連づけて指導される場合が殆どである。このような指導法の影響を探るべく、海外経験のある日本語母語話者（JR）、海外経験の無い日本語母語話者（JNR）、英語母語話者（NES）の3種類の参加者を対象に、現在完了形の義務的文脈内での使用に違いがあるのかを比較した。その結果、JRやNESが現在完了形を使用した文脈においてJNRは過去形や現在形を使う傾向が見られた。また、継続相の副詞が確認できる文脈では、JNRもJRも現在完了形使用がより正確になるなどの共通点も見られた。教育的示唆として、現在完了形使用が適切となるような文脈に関する肯定証拠を学習者に与える必要性などが提案される。

SECOND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND PAUSING A Study of Russian Speakers of English

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Riazantseva
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Pause Duration ◽  
Target Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Russian Speakers

The present study examines the relationship between second language (L2) proficiency and pausing patterns (i.e., pause duration, frequency, and distribution) in the speech of 30 Russian speakers of English performing two oral tasks—a topic narrative and a cartoon description—in Russian and in English. The subjects were divided into two oral English proficiency groups, high and intermediate, on the basis of a standardized test of spoken English. Baseline data were collected from a control group of 20 native English speakers. Statistical analyses were performed to determine: (a) the native norms of pause duration, frequency, and distribution for Russian and English on the two experimental tasks; (b) the effect of the level of L2 proficiency (high and intermediate) on the pausing of Russian speakers in English; and (c) the differences or similarities in pausing exhibited by native English speakers and native Russian speakers (with two different levels of English proficiency) when speaking English. The results of this study indicate that English and Russian informal monologue speech can be characterized as having different pausing conventions, thus suggesting that crosslinguistic differences involve, among many other aspects, contrasts in pausing patterns. Additionally, L2 proficiency was found to affect the pause duration of advanced nonnative speakers in that they were able to adjust the duration of their pauses in English to produce a nativelike pausing norm. It was also found that even highly proficient L2 speakers pause more frequently in their L2 than in their first language (L1). The examination of pause distribution patterns suggests that persons of intermediate to high L2 speaking proficiency make the same number of within-constituent pauses as native speakers. Overall, the findings of this study support the view that adherence to the target language pausing norms may lead to the perception of nonnative speech as more fluent and nativelike. The findings also highlight the importance of exposing L2 students to a richer variety of situations that illustrate native patterns of verbal communication.

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