Perception and Production of English Liquids /l/ and /r/ before and after Learning by Korean English Leaners

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze errors made in the perception and production of English liquids by Korean college students. For this study, perception and production experiments were conducted with 27 Korean college students(14 males and 13 females). The experiment stimuli tested were /l/ and /r/, occurring in various positions: onset, onset cluster, word-medial, coda, and coda cluster. The results of this study are as follows. First, as a result of the perception experiments, the subjects showed a higher error rate in /r/ than in /l/. Second, in the production experiments, it was found that more errors were made in /l/ than in /r/, contrary to the perception experiment, due to the difficulty of pronouncing the dark [ɫ]. Third, in both the perception and production experiments, the error rate of the coda position was significantly higher and that of the onset cluster was the lowest. In addition, the results of this study proved the general trend seen in second language acquisition. First, in the perception and production of /l/ and /r/ in English, both negative and positive transfer of mother tongue appear. Second, there is a proportional correlation between perception and production in second language acquisition.