Roles of domain-general auditory processing in spoken second-language vocabulary attainment in adulthood

Abstract

Recently, scholars have begun to explore the hypothesis that individual differences in domain-general auditory perception, which has been identified as an anchor of L1 acquisition, could explain some variance in postpubertal L2 learners’ segmental and suprasegmental learning in immersive settings. The current study set out to examine the generalizability of the topic to the acquisition of higher-level linguistic production skills—that is the appropriate use of diverse, rich, and abstract vocabulary. The speech of 100 Polish-English bilinguals was elicited using an interview task, submitted to corpus-/rater-based linguistic analyses, and linked to their ability to discriminate sounds based on individual acoustic dimensions (pitch, duration, and amplitude). According to the results, those who attained more advanced L2 lexical proficiency demonstrated not only more relevant experience (extensive immersion and earlier age of arrival), but also more precise auditory perception ability.

Does domain-general auditory processing uniquely explain the outcomes of second language speech acquisition, even once cognitive and demographic variables are accounted for?

“…The emerging findings in support of the relatively strong connection between auditory processing and post-pubertal L2 speech acquisition have been replicated with other groups of L2 learners with diverse L1 backgrounds (e.g., Chinese, Polish, Spanish; Saito, Sun, Kachlicka, Robert, Nakata & Tierney, 2021b) across different dimensions of L2 learning (e.g., Kachlicka et al, 2019 andSaito, Macmillan, Kroeger, Magne, Takizawa, Kachlicka & for lexicogrammar learning ;Saito, Sun & Tierney, 2019;Saito, Kachlicka, Sun & Tierney, 2020a;Saito, Suzukida, Tran & Tierney, 2021a for speech production) from both cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives (Saito et al, 2020b;Sun et al, 2021). On the whole, it seems that the outcomes of L2 speech learning could be EQUALLY affected by factors related to auditory processing and biographical backgrounds.…”

Training auditory processing promotes second language speech acquisition.

“…In a different venue (Saito, Macmillan, et al, 2022), the control group’s pre- and posttest scores of English [r] and [l] were analyzed to examine the effectiveness of such speech training on the development of Japanese speakers’ English [r] and [l] proficiency. In the current study, their pre- and posttests scores of English [æ] and [ʌ] (that they did not practice during the training) were used to index test–retest effects in the current study.…”

How does having a good ear promote successful second language speech acquisition in adulthood? Introducing Auditory Precision Hypothesis-L2

“…Further, auditory precision facilitates the detection of suffixes, inflection, and articles (Joanisse & Seidenberg, 1998) and word order (Penner et al, 2001). Since auditory processing is involved in every stage of L2 speech learning, future research can further explore how this ability differentially promotes the development of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar in a complementary fashion (for some emerging evidence, see Kachlicka et al, 2019; Saito et al, in press-d).…”