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.

Musical Hearing and Musical Experience in Second Language English Vowel Acquisition

Purpose Former studies suggested that music perception can help produce certain accentual features in the first and second language (L2), such as intonational contours. What was missing in many of these studies was the identification of the exact relationship between specific music perception skills and the production of different accentual features in a foreign language. Our aim was to verify whether empirically tested musical hearing skills can be related to the acquisition of English vowels by learners of English as an L2 before and after a formal accent training course. Method Fifty adult Polish speakers of L2 English were tested before and after a two-semester accent training in order to observe the effect of musical hearing on the acquisition of English vowels. Their L2 English vowel formant contours produced in consonant–vowel–consonant context were compared with the target General British vowels produced by their pronunciation teachers. We juxtaposed these results with their musical hearing test scores and self-reported musical experience to observe a possible relationship between successful L2 vowel acquisition and musical aptitude. Results Preexisting rhythmic memory was reported as a significant predictor before training, while musical experience was reported as a significant factor in the production of more native-like L2 vowels after training. We also observed that not all vowels were equally acquired or affected by musical hearing or musical experience. The strongest estimate we observed was the closeness to model before training, suggesting that learners who already managed to acquire some features of a native-like accent were also more successful after training. Conclusions Our results are revealing in two aspects. First, the learners' former proficiency in L2 pronunciation is the most robust predictor in acquiring a native-like accent. Second, there is a potential relationship between rhythmic memory and L2 vowel acquisition before training, as well as years of musical experience after training, suggesting that specific musical skills and music practice can be an asset in learning a foreign language accent.

Acoustic analysis of monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs in Mandarin for 3- to 5-year-old children with articulatory phonological disorders

Ten 3- to 5-year old children (5M, 5F) who were diagnosed as children with articulatory phonological disorders (CWAPD) and attending a therapy program were recruited to participate in a ‘repeat-after-her’ experiment. They were asked to produce a total of 85 real Mandarin words, including 28 monophthongs, 41 diphthongs, and 16 triphthongs. The results indicated that CWAPD have no problem producing monophthongs. However, attempts to articulate diphthongs and triphthongs induced more errors. CWAPD showed more errors when producing words with 1st sonorant diphthongs than words with 2nd sonorant diphthongs—this is because the least sonorant segment in the last position is prone to distortion. Similar phenomena were found in other triphthongs, except with /iai/ and /iou/, which did not see deviant pronunciation. Comparing our study to the information provided by two therapists showed that the participating CWAPD encountered difficulties in producing multi-vowel syllables, where the position and sonorant matters. In addition, our results also reveal a similar vowel acquisition order among CWAPD as among normal children.