Different effects of L1 and L2 phonology on L3 lexical learning: An ERP study

This study investigated the influence of phonological word representations from both first language (L1) and second language (L2) on third language (L3) lexical learning in L1-dominant Spanish–English bilinguals. More specifically, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine whether L1 Spanish and L2 English phonology modulates bilinguals’ brain response to newly learned L3 Slovak words, some of which had substantial phonological overlap with either L1 or L2 words (interlingual homophones) in comparison to matched control words with little or no phonological overlap. ERPs were recorded from a group of 20 Spanish–English bilinguals in response to 120 auditory Slovak words, both before and after a three-day-long learning period during which they associated the L3 Slovak novel words with their L1 Spanish translations. Behaviorally, both L1 Spanish and L2 English homophony facilitated the learning of L3 Slovak words in a similar manner. In contrast, the electrophysiological results of the post-training ERPs, but not the pre-training ERPs, showed an N100 effect for L2 English interlingual homophones and opposite N400 effects for L1 Spanish and L2 English interlingual homophones in comparison to control words. These findings suggest different neurocognitive mechanisms in the use of L1 and L2 phonological information when learning novel words in an L3.

On the Difficulty of Defining “Difficult” in Second-Language Vowel Acquisition

Hierarchies of difficulty in second-language (L2) phonology have long played a role in the postulation and evaluation of learning models. In L2 pronunciation teaching, hierarchies are assumed to be helpful in the development of instructional strategies based on anticipated areas of difficulty. This investigation addressed the practicality of defining a pedagogically useful hierarchy of difficulty for English tense and lax close vowels (/i I u ʊ/) produced by Cantonese speakers. Unlike their English counterparts, Cantonese close tense-lax pairs are allophonic variants with [i u] occurring before alveolars and [I ʊ] before velars. Each tense-lax pair represents a “phonemic split” in which members of a single L1 category are realized contrastively in L2. Despite evidence that English tense-lax distinctions are challenging for Cantonese speakers, no previous empirical work has closely considered the problem from the standpoint of vowel intelligibility across multiple phonetic contexts and in different words sharing the same rhyme. In a picture-based word-elicitation task, 18 Cantonese-speaking participants produced 31 high-frequency CV and CVC words. Vowels were evaluated for intelligibility by phonetically-trained judges. A series of mixed-effects binary logistic models were fitted to the scores, with vowel quality, phonetic context (rhyme) and word as factors, and length of Canadian residence and daily use of English as co-variates. As expected, the general hierarchy of difficulty for vowels that emerged (/i/ > /u/ > /ʊ/ > /I/) was complicated by large differences across phonetic contexts. Results were not readily explicable in terms of transfer; moreover, different words with the same rhyme were not produced with equal intelligibility. The most serious modeling complication was the sizeable inter-speaker variability in difficulties, which could not be accounted for by model co-variates. Although some difficulties were roughly systematic at the group level, it is argued that establishing a pedagogically useful hierarchy on such data would prove intractable. Rather, L2 learners might be better served by assessment and instructional targeting of their individual problem areas than by a focus on errors predicted from hierarchies of difficulty.

The Role of Theory in SLA Empirical Research on the Critical Period Hypothesis

This paper sets out to peruse the role of various theories or more precisely, hypotheses invoked in SLA research by surveying three empirical studies pertaining to the critical period hypothesis in the SLA of phonetics and phonology. In particular, the three studies which will be reviewed in the next section are titled in chronological order as (1) A critical period for learning to pronounce foreign languages? (Flege, 1987); (2) Reexamining the critical period hypothesis: A case study of successful adult SLA in a naturalistic environment. (Ioup et al., 1994); (3) Ultimate attainment in L2 Phonology: The Critical Factors of Age, Motivation, and Instruction (Moyer, 1999).

Ease and Difficulty in L2 Phonology: A Mini-Review

A variety of phonological explanations have been proposed to account for why some sounds are harder to learn than others. In this mini-review, we review such theoretical constructs and models as markedness (including the markedness differential hypothesis) and frequency-based approaches (including Bayesian models). We also discuss experimental work designed to tease apart markedness versus frequency. Processing accounts are also given. In terms of phonological domains, we present examples of feature-based accounts of segmental phenomena which predict that the L1 features (not segments) will determine the ease and difficulty of acquisition. Models which look at the type of feature which needs to be acquired, and models which look at the functional load of a given feature are also presented. This leads to a presentation of the redeployment hypothesis which demonstrates how learners can take the building blocks available in the L1 and create new structures in the L2. A broader background is provided by discussing learnability approaches and the constructs of positive and negative evidence. This leads to the asymmetry hypothesis, and presentation of new work exploring the explanatory power of a contrastive hierarchy approach. The mini-review is designed to give readers a refresher course in phonological approaches to ease and difficulty in acquisition which will help to contextualize the papers presented in this collection.

Production of voice onset time (VOT) by senior Polish learners of English

Although research on foreign language learning among seniors has recently accelerated, studies on L2 phonology in this age group remain scarce. Seniors may be at a great disadvantage when it comes to learning the sounds of a foreign language because age of onset has been shown to correlate negatively with ultimate attainment especially for phonology (Piske et al. 2001). However, this is all the more reason to attempt a better understanding of the mechanisms of senior. This paper offers an attempt at shedding light on how senior learners with an age of L2 onset above 60 produce voiced and voiceless L2 word-initial stops. Twenty L1 Polish senior learners of English were asked to read a list of words containing word-initial voiced and voiceless plosives in their L2 English at A2+/B1 level according to CEFR. The results show that the senior Polish learners of English produce an in-between category for the English stops (with VOT longer than for Polish, but shorter than native English). The senior learners also experienced L1 drift, but mostly in the voiceless L1 Polish stops.

Reconstructing Chinese Pidgin English phonology on the basis of written sources

"This paper is an attempt at outlining the phonology of Chinese Pidgin English, including its syllable structure, with an emphasis on the onset and the coda. Since Chinese Pidgin English is an extinct variety, the only available sources are written records such as magazine articles (e.g. in The Chinese Repository), literary works, travelogues, and letters. Reconstructing the phonology of Chinese Pidgin English on the basis of the orthography used in these sources raises the issues of the reliability of the sources and of the methodological implications. These are addressed in light of the caveats formulated by Mühlhäusler (1997), Baker and Winer (1999), Avram (2000), among others. In line with the principle of sociolinguistic accountability, all tokens in the samples of Chinese Pidgin English are included in the analysis as well as all the contexts where they might have appeared. In addition, a comparison will be made with other contemporary records of Chinese Pidgin English, with the phonology of Hong Kong English (Setter et al. 2010) and with the L2 phonology of Chinese learners of English. Such a comparison is certainly not the perfect equivalent of Rickford’s (1986) “feedback from current usage”, given that Chinese Pidgin English is no longer spoken. However, this approach is warranted by the so-called “uniformitarian principle” (Labov 1972), which posits that current patterns are similar to those that operated in the past."

Using Gesture to Facilitate L2 Phoneme Acquisition: The Importance of Gesture and Phoneme Complexity

Most language learners have difficulties acquiring the phonemes of a second language (L2). Unfortunately, they are often judged on their L2 pronunciation, and segmental inaccuracies contribute to miscommunication. Therefore, we aim to determine how to facilitate phoneme acquisition. Given the close relationship between speech and co-speech gesture, previous work unsurprisingly reports that gestures can benefit language acquisition, e.g., in (L2) word learning. However, gesture studies on L2 phoneme acquisition present contradictory results, implying that both specific properties of gestures and phonemes used in training, and their combination, may be relevant. We investigated the effect of phoneme and gesture complexity on L2 phoneme acquisition. In a production study, Dutch natives received instruction on the pronunciation of two Spanish phonemes, /u/ and /θ/. Both are typically difficult to produce for Dutch natives because their orthographic representation differs between both languages. Moreover, /θ/ is considered more complex than /u/, since the Dutch phoneme inventory contains /u/ but not /θ/. The instruction participants received contained Spanish examples presented either via audio-only, audio-visually without gesture, audio-visually with a simple, pointing gesture, or audio-visually with a more complex, iconic gesture representing the relevant speech articulator(s). Preceding and following training, participants read aloud Spanish sentences containing the target phonemes. In a perception study, Spanish natives rated the target words from the production study on accentedness and comprehensibility. Our results show that combining gesture and speech in L2 phoneme training can lead to significant improvement in L2 phoneme production, but both gesture and phoneme complexity affect successful learning: Significant learning only occurred for the less complex phoneme /u/ after seeing the more complex iconic gesture, whereas for the more complex phoneme /θ/, seeing the more complex gesture actually hindered acquisition. The perception results confirm the production findings and show that items containing /θ/ produced after receiving training with a less complex pointing gesture are considered less foreign-accented and more easily comprehensible as compared to the same items after audio-only training. This shows that gesture can facilitate task performance in L2 phonology acquisition, yet complexity affects whether certain gestures work better for certain phonemes than others.

L2 Acquisition of Spanish VOT by English-Speaking Immigrants in Spain

Previous studies of native English speakers learning Spanish as a second language (L2) document compromise voice onset time (VOT) values; however, the focus has been predominantly on voiceless stops and has almost exclusively investigated beginning and intermediate learners. This study fills a gap in the literature by considering the acquisition of VOT in both voiceless and voiced Spanish stops by long-time native English-speaking residents of Spain. Overall, the results show that the L2 speakers’ VOT values differ from those of native speakers across all stop consonants; yet L2 speakers’ productions of voiceless, as opposed to voiced, stops more closely approximate those of native speakers. Considerable individual variation is observed as no speaker achieves native-like performance overall, and no consonant is mastered by more than half of the speakers. Results are considered in light of what they contribute to our understanding of ultimate attainment of Spanish VOT, specifically, and L2 phonology more generally.