Development of the ability to lexically encode novel second language phonemic contrasts

Abstract

International audienceSecond language (L2) learners must often learn to perceive and produce novel L2 phoneme contrasts. Although both research and intuition suggest that these difficulties can be overcome to some extent with exposure to the L2, it is not known what consequences this kind of learning has for the phonological structure of the L2 lexicon. We present an experiment designed to investigate the lexical representations that learners establish for L2 words that contain novel phonemic contrasts. Specifically, we consider the acquisition of Japanese consonant length contrasts by native speakers of English: Japanese contrasts consonants such as /k/ and /kk/ while English does not. The results indicate that native English speakers do not initially encode consonant length consistently in their lexical representations of Japanese words, as reflected in both listening and production tasks. However, after one year of Japanese experience, the phonological structure of their Japanese lexicon more closely approximates that of native Japanese speakers. We conclude that significant changes to the structure of the L2 lexicon can occur even within the first year of L2 learning

Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access

“…This is in striking contrast with most of the studies reviewed in the first paragraphs of this introduction, namely Curtin et al (1998), Pallier et al (2001) and Hayes-Harb and Masuda (2008), all of which provide evidence that is consistent with homophonous lexical entries for L2. The present study aims to answer the question of how L2 learners can establish contrastive lexical representations for phonemes that they do not reliably discriminate in listening tasks.…”

Learning words in a third language: Effects of vowel inventory and language proficiency

“…This learner result suggests continuity between prelexical non-native perception and L3 word recognition. Many previous studies (Pallier et al, 2001, Cutler & Otake, 2004, Weber & Cutler, 2004, Broersma 2005, Cutler and Broersma, 2005, Cutler et al, 2006, Broersma & Cutler, 2008, Escudero et al, 2008, Hayes-Harb & Masuda 2008 have already shown that L2 words containing contrasts which are difficult for learners to perceive pose problems in word recognition. The present study shows that this continuity can also be found in L3 word recognition.…”

Statistical Regularities Affect the Perception of Second Language Speech: Evidence From Adult Classroom Learners of Mandarin Chinese

“…Remarkably, L2 learners’ knowledge of frequent phonological patterns was used to bootstrap perception even at Test 1. These results suggest that prior to testing (i.e., during the first year of classroom learning), L2 learners began encoding statistical and phonological information in L2 representations (e.g., Hayes‐Harb, ; Hayes‐Harb & Masuda, ).…”