English Consonant Identification in Multi-Talker Babble: Effects of Chinese-Native Listeners’ English Experience

Tao, Sha; Chen, Yingyue; Wang, Wenjing; Dong, Qi; Jin, Su-Hyun; Liu, Chang

doi:10.1177/0023830918790604

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 32 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…Although many previous studies have shown plasticity for L2 learners in the phonetic/phonology domain, L2 proficiency does not seem to have a clear correlation with mastering new contrasts [ 13 ]. Conversely, previous studies have shown English consonants appear to be easier to perceive for Mandarin speakers, suggesting that they constitute a SIMILAR scenario, leading to better L2 performance from the start [ 30 , 31 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers

2022

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Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner’s first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers

2022

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Non-native disadvantage in spoken word recognition is due to lexical knowledge and not type/level of noise

Wang

Lee

Wiener

2023

Speech Communication

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Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

Tao

et al. 2019

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

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English Consonant Identification in Multi-Talker Babble: Effects of Chinese-Native Listeners’ English Experience

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers

Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers

Non-native disadvantage in spoken word recognition is due to lexical knowledge and not type/level of noise

Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

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