Non-Native Dialect Matters: The Perception of European and Brazilian Portuguese Vowels by Californian English Monolinguals and Spanish–English Bilinguals

Abstract

Studies show that second language (L2) learners’ perceptual patterns differ depending on their native dialect (e.g., Chládková and Podlipský 2011; Escudero and Williams 2012). Likewise, speakers from the same native language background show different perceptual patterns depending on the dialect to which they are exposed (e.g., Escudero and Boersma 2004; Escudero and Chládková 2010). The Second Language Linguistic Perception model (L2LP; Escudero 2005) accounts for these differences, explicitly stating that the acoustic similarity between the native and target dialect affects L2 perception. This study investigated whether Californian English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual listeners differ in their perception of European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) vowels. Escudero et al. (2009a) showed that there were differences in the acoustic realization of vowels in BP and EP. Stressed vowels were longer in BP than in EP, with differences in vowel height observed for some vowels (e.g., /ɛ/ is higher in EP than in BP). According to the L2LP model, these acoustic differences between dialects will affect vowel perception; therefore, we predicted that there would be differences in the listeners’ perception of certain vowel contrasts in BP and EP. Participants completed a non-native categorization task and a discrimination task presented in the XAB format. The results from the non-native categorization task predicted differential vowel perception depending on both the dialect and vowel contrast that listeners heard, which were mostly confirmed with an interaction between dialect and contrast in the discrimination results. We contextualize these results with respect to models of L2 speech perception, highlighting that dialectal differences impact language perception and may influence later language learning.

How bidialectalism affects non-native speech acquisition: Evidence from Shanghai and Mandarin Chinese

“…The results suggest that overall, there is a bidialectal advantage for Shanghai Chinese speakers in producing the easy English vowels, but that advantage becomes less apparent for the difficult English vowels, particularly in terms of formant frequencies. The results are in line with the proposal that the bilingual advantage is not broad-based; rather, it is modulated by the degree of difficulty and learnability of the target sounds (Antoniou et al, 2015; Elvin et al, 2018; Escudero et al, 2016; Kopečková, 2016). When the target non-native sounds are “easy,” bilingualism could play a positive role in enhancing learning, whereas for learning “difficult” non-native target sounds, bilingualism may not be sufficient to yield high accuracy.…”

“…The mixed results of previous studies as reviewed above suggest that the answer should take into account the cross-linguistic influences between native and non-native sounds. Specifically, the acoustic characteristics and learning difficulty of the non-native speech sounds in relation to the native sound system could play a significant role in determining how bilingualism/bidialectalism influences non-native speech learning (Antoniou et al, 2015;Elvin et al, 2018;Escudero et al 2013Escudero et al , 2016Kopečková, 2016). For adult learners, the acquisition of sounds in a new language is usually influenced by the learner's experience with speech sounds in previously acquired languages.…”

“…A growing body of research has shown that bilinguals tend to have advantages in learning additional languages compared to monolinguals (Abu-Rabia & Sanitsky, 2010; Hirosh & Degani, 2018), with regard to both language-general proficiency (Swain et al, 1990) and language-specific skills (Klein, 1995). Nevertheless, in the domain of non-native phonological/phonetic acquisition, studies on the influence of bilingualism have rendered mixed results (Antoniou et al, 2015; Elvin et al, 2018; Escudero et al. 2016), which therefore requires further exploration.…”

perception of brazilian Portuguese open and close mid vowels by native Russian speakers

“…Studies on vowel discrimination by non-native speakers with no knowledge of Portuguese were carried out by Elvin et al (2014Elvin et al ( , 2018. Their findings show that the most difficult vowel contrast was /o/-/u/, followed by the pair /e/-/i/.…”