Perception of French vowels by American English adults with and without French language experience

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of language experience and consonantal context on American English (AE) listeners' discrimination of contrasts involving Parisian French vowels /y, oe, u, i/. Vowels were produced in /rabVp/ and /radVt/ nonsense disyllables in carrier phrases by 3 speakers and presented in a categorial AXB discrimination task. Two groups were tested: AE listeners who had studied French extensively beginning after age 13 (Exp) and non-French-speaking AE listeners (Inexp). Overall, the Exp group performed better than the Inexp group on /u-oe/, /i-y/ and /y-oe/ (mean errors: Exp=5%, Inexp=24%). However, for /u-y/, the groups did not differ (Exp=30% vs Inexp=24% errors). The Inexp group confused /i-y/ more often in bilabial context, but /u-y/ more often in alveolar context, whereas the Exp group confused /u-y/ more often in both contexts. For all contrasts, the Inexp group performed better in bilabial than in alveolar context (16% vs 32% errors), whereas the Exp group revealed no context effect. Results suggest that learning a second language (L2) includes learning its coarticulatory rules. Implications for models of L2-speech perception are discussed.

On the assimilation-discrimination relationship in American English adults’ French vowel learning

“…The listeners must thus make decisions based on speakerindependent categories ͑Beddor and Gottfried, 1995͒. 3 Except for one HiExp listener, participants in the present experiment ͑and in Levy, 2009͒ differed from those in Levy and Strange, 2008. As Levy and Strange's ͑2008͒ study had taken place 3 years prior to the present experiment, no learning effect was expected.…”

“…For the PF /y-u/ vowel pair, formal experience alone was not associated with greater accuracy, consistent with Levy's ͑2009͒ finding of no experience effect for perceptual assimilation of PF /y/ to AE / j u/ in alveolar context ͑a pattern that would predict two-category assimilation, thus higher discrimination accuracy͒, but not with the finding of an experience effect of decreased PF /y/ to AE / j u / assimilation by the HiExp group in bilabial context. In the present study, listeners immersed in French for several years performed essentially the same as those with no French experience, lending support to studies that point to the PF /y-u/ contrast as one particularly resistant to perceptual learning by AE listeners ͑e.g., Gottfried, 1984;Levy and Strange, 2008͒. Compared to naïve listeners, listeners with formal training alone discriminated the PF mid-vowel pair /oe-o/ more accurately, and listeners with extensive formal training and immersion performed with the greatest accuracy. No higher discrimination accuracy for the PF vowel pairs /oe-u/ and /y-oe/ was associated with merely formal training, but extensive training and immersion were associated with significantly more accurate discrimination.…”

“…Findings from the reported discrimination experiment and other studies ͑e.g., Gottfried, 1984;Levy and Strange, 2008;Strange et al, 2001 suggest that contextual variation in the phonetic realization of vowels across languages impacts L2 vowel learning. Levy's ͑2009͒ assimilation study indicates that PF /y/ will be perceived as most similar to AE /u/ more often in alveolar context than in bilabial context, leading to more PF /y-u/ discrimination difficulty in alveolar context ͑with more assimilation overlap͒ than in bilabial context, as found in the present study.…”

“…Overall, it was predicted that experienced L2 learners would demonstrate more accurate discrimination of contrasts than would inexperienced learners ͑Levy, 2009; Levy and Strange, 2008͒. Specifically, the HiExp group was expected to perform more accurately on the categorial discrimination task than the ModExp group, who was expected to perform more accurately than the NoExp group.…”

Mobile speech recognition software: A tool for teaching second language pronunciation

“…This is an ideal target phoneme for pronunciation instruction because, as mentioned earlier, /y/ is highly problematic for speakers of a variety of first languages (e.g. English, Mandarin, Spanish) in both production and perception (Baker and Smith, 2010;Levy and Strange, 2008). According to Flege's (1995) Speech Learning Model, during acquisition, speech perception becomes attuned to the contrastive phonic elements of the L1 and thus learners may fail to discern the phonetic differences between sounds in the L2.…”