The present study examines the production of voicing by English-speaking learners of French in a traditional classroom environment, focusing on the juxtaposition between group patterns and individual tendencies. Thirty-one intermediate-level learners completed word-reading production tasks in French and English, and voice onset time was measured in word-initial bilabial stops. At the group level, results demonstrated strong interference from English in participants’ French, especially in the production of voiceless stops. In contrast, voiced stops overall were more target-like, revealing an asymmetry in the acquisition of the two members of the phonological distinction. At the individual level, much variability was observed both in the relative attainment of pronunciation targets and in the alignment between participants first and second language pronunciation patterns, ultimately highlighting the need for future research to consider individual trends in order to understand L2 speech acquisition in a more comprehensive manner.
Voice Onset Time (VOT) and onset f0 are known correlates of voicing distinctions in stops and both contribute to the perception of voicing (House & Fairbanks, 1953; Abramson & Lisker, 1965). The values of VOT and onset f0 which correspond to voicing categories vary cross-linguistically. Second language (L2) learners often have to acquire a novel use of these acoustic cues to produce and perceive L2 voicing. The acquisition of primary voicing cue, VOT, has been studied extensively in L2 research (Flege & Eefting, 1988; Flege 1991; Birdsong et al. 2007) but less is known about the acquisition of secondary cues. The present study compares the use of VOT and onset f0 in French and English speech produced by American learners of French (22). The study also examines the role of back transfer in L2 learners by comparing their English productions to a monolingual control group (33). The results demonstrate that although learners’ VOT values in French were heavily influenced by English, their onset f0 production in both English and French was on target. Little evidence of learners’ second language affecting their first language was found. Individual trends, including the effect of L2 proficiency level will also be explored.
Previous laboratory-based research has found phonological memory to significantly affect the perception of non-native speech sounds (Inceoglu, 2019). The present study aims to bolster findings reported in Inceoglu (2019) and provide support for the efficacy of online research by replicating the study’s laboratory-based research in an online setting. Data were collected from 32 native English-speaking learners of French (12 male, 20 female; mean age: 33 years old) online using the Prolific data collection platform (www.prolific.com). The study consisted of two major components: an L2 French nasal vowel identification task (Inceoglu, 2019) and a nonword repetition task designed to assess phonological memory (Anderson, 2012; Grey et al., 2015; Inceoglu, 2019; Kissling, 2014). Results of a simple linear regression revealed that participants with higher scores on the nonword repetition task (indicative of better phonological short-term memory) were significantly likely to perform more target-like on the nasal vowel identification task than those with lower scores (t = 12.57; p < 0.001). These findings not only replicate the original results outlined in Inceoglu (2019), but they also support the efficacy of online research. The latter finding is crucial as research begins to adjust to accommodate a more socially distanced world.
The present study examines whether personality traits are predictive of success in non-native speech shadowing. Seventy-four monolingual native speakers of English shadowed French words containing high rounded vowels /y/ and /u/ produced by a native French model talker and provided information about their personality through a Big Five Inventory questionnaire. Acoustic analyses support the idea that some personality traits predicted the degree of similarity between the talkers and the model. In this case, shadowed productions by talkers who had higher scores in extraversion and neuroticism were significantly more similar to the model than those who had lower scores.
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