Acquisition of L2 lexical tone has proven to be difficult for L1 speakers of non-tonal languages, resulting in potential issues for intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness. Recent studies have suggested that visual feedback is a useful method for tone training. However, the potential for generalizability of improvement from the word level to the phrasal level has yet to be systematically investigated. This study explores the use of visual feedback to teach tone to L1 English learners of Mandarin. Four L1 English-L2 Mandarin beginning-level learners participated in a visual feedback paradigm with a pretest, intervention, posttest design. Stimuli included disyllabic words in isolation and embedded in phrases. Results suggest improvement in tone production following the visual feedback paradigm for words in isolation, although with different outcomes for different tones. Furthermore, there was little suggested generalizability to the phrasal level, potentially owing to greater crosslinguistic interference from L1 phrasal level intonation.
Previous work has established that speakers are able adjust the acoustic properties of their speech in order to mimic their interlocuter or speech model with whom they share a native language (e.g., Pardo, 2013). However, it is less clear whether convergence to accented speech and/or unfamiliar languages is also a possibility. The goal of the present study is to investigate acoustic convergence between two groups of native English speakers (N = 15 in each group) and a speaker of Russian-accented English versus a speaker of Russian. The study consisted of four experimental phases: baseline, exposure, shadowing, and post-test. Participants in both groups shadowed acoustically identical material, although one group was informed that they were hearing Russian-accented English words (ACC-ENG condition), while the second group was told that they were shadowing Russian words (RUS condition). Initial analysis of the VOT durations of participants’ voiceless stops indicated that only participants in the RUS group converged towards the models’ shorter VOT during shadowing, although this convergence did not generalize to participants’ pronunciation of English words during the post-test. Additional data analysis is ongoing. This presentation will also discuss results with respect to their implications for theories of speech accommodation and non-native speech learning.
Second language learners often experience difficulties discriminating L2 contrasts absent in their L1. Theoretical frameworks, (e.g., SLM, PAM, L2LP), make predictions about the acquisition of L2 phonemes based on the existence of equivalent or similar L1 phonemes, but do not explicitly consider the extent of L1 allophonic variability as a contributing factor. The present study compared the perceptual discrimination of English contrasts /ɪ-i/ and /ɛ-æ/ by learners with Mandarin and Korean L1 backgrounds. Both languages have only one L1 phoneme for the two relevant L2 contrasts. Furthermore, Mandarin [ɛ] is an allophone of the highly variable mid vowel phoneme /E/, while Korean /ɛ/ lacks this variability. Allophonic variability may condition learners to accept diverse vowel qualities as acceptable renditions of the corresponding phoneme, therefore lowering their discriminability. In an AX perceptual discrimination task, 16 Standard Mandarin and 14 Korean speakers were similar in their discrimination of the /ɪ-i/ vowels, but, as predicted, the Mandarin group was less accurate for the /ɛ-æ/ pairs. These findings suggest that allophonic variability in the L1 needs to be considered when making theory-driven predictions concerning the acquisition of specific phonological categories.
Current frameworks of L2 phonetic acquisition remain largely underspecified with respect to the role of L1 allophonic variability in acquisition. Examining the role of L1 allophonic variability, the current study compared the perceptual discrimination of English /i-ɪ/ and /ɛ-æ/ by L1 Korean and L1 Mandarin speakers. Korean and Mandarin vowel inventories differ in that Mandarin employs significantly greater allophonic variation of the mid-region /E/ vowel. Results demonstrated worse perceptual accuracy by L1 Mandarin speakers for the /ɛ-æ/ contrast than L1 Korean speakers. These results suggest that both L1 phonemic inventories and allophonic variation play a role in L2 phonetic acquisition.
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