What Do Second Language Listeners Know About Spoken Words? Effects of Experience and Attention in Spoken Word Processing

Abstract

With a goal of investigating psycholinguistic bases of spoken word processing in a second language (L2), this study examined L2 learners' sensitivity to phonological information in spoken L2 words as a function of their L2 experience and attentional demands of a learning task. Fifty-two Chinese learners of English who differed in amount of L2 experience (longer vs. shorter residence in L2 environment) were tested in an auditory word priming experiment on well-known L2 words under two processing orientation conditions (semantic, control). Results revealed that, with more L2 experience, learners become more sensitive to phonological detail in spoken L2 words but that attention to word meaning might eliminate this sensitivity, even for learners with more L2 experience.

Talker-familiarity benefit in non-native recognition memory and word identification: The role of listening conditions and proficiency

“…This would also be in line with a higher sensitivity to acoustic patterns in the speech signal by listeners with a higher lexical proficiency, who are, as a consequence, better at encoding indexical information and consequently better at discriminating familiar and unfamiliar talkers. A similar explanation was offered by Trofimovich (2008) who suggested that more experienced non-native listeners are likely to be better at encoding context-specific phonological information from non-native words, and thus have an improved encoding of indexical information and discrimination of familiar and unfamiliar talkers.…”

“…The presence of background noise slows down the speech recognition process (Brouwer & Bradlow, 2011 dependent on the listeners' amount of experience with the non-native language (Trofimovich, 2008). Trofimovich (2008) argued that more experienced listeners were more sensitive to phonetic detail in spoken words in the non-native language, and therefore, experienced more facilitation from the same talker than the listeners with less experience in the non-native language.…”

“…The presence of background noise slows down the speech recognition process (Brouwer & Bradlow, 2011 dependent on the listeners' amount of experience with the non-native language (Trofimovich, 2008). Trofimovich (2008) argued that more experienced listeners were more sensitive to phonetic detail in spoken words in the non-native language, and therefore, experienced more facilitation from the same talker than the listeners with less experience in the non-native language. Further, similar to native listeners, non-native listeners were shown to recognize words better when they were produced by one talker than when they were produced by multiple talkers (Bradlow & Pisoni, 1999;Tamati & Pisoni, 2014), and adapted to the accent of previously unfamiliar talkers and used this knowledge in a subsequent recognition of words from these talkers (Drozdova et al, 2016;Reinisch et al, 2013).…”

Using Auditory Word Repetition to Improve L2 Pronunciation of English Schwa by Japanese Learners: From the Perspective of Phonological Processing

“…This implicit learning occurs because the phonetic/phonological information contained in spoken words is encoded and stored in listeners' implicit memory, facilitating subsequent speech processing. Previous studies have revealed that just one instance of hearing of a word can facilitate subsequent speech perception of the word (e.g., Hori & Sugiura, 2013;Sugiura & Hori, 2012;Trofimovich, 2005;Trofimovich, 2008;Trofimovich & Gatbonton, 2006). Since there is a strong relationship between speech perception and production (Galantucci, Fowler, & Turvey, 2006) in speech acquisition, increased repetition of presented auditory words can raise learners' sensitivity to phonetic/phonological information in L2 auditory input, and this greater sensitivity is expected to promote pronunciation accuracy as well.…”

Investigating an innovative computer application to improve L2 word recognition from speech

“…Conversely, early-stage L2 learners find it harder to recognise the words comprising L2 speech (Goh, 2000). This difficulty stems from the intrinsically blended and ephemeral nature of the speech signal in addition to the learner's relative paucity of exposure to contextualised examples of the target language in the aural modality (Hulstijn, 2003;Trofimovich, 2008). Consequently, L2 listeners are often unable to adequately process the incoming L2 speech signal, relying strongly on guessing and contextual cues as they attempt to grasp its meaning (Field, 2008a;Tsui & Fullilove, 1998).…”