A comparison of phonological errors made by native and non-native listeners.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that listeners have difficulty recognizing non‐native words in noise [Mayo et al. (1997)] and affective prosody in quiet [Dromey et al. (2005)]. Difficulty increases with less L2 ability. Findings from the current study support these results while indicating that non‐native listeners have additional difficulty identifying prosodic patterns (i.e., those indicating sentence type) and using semantic information under high levels of background noise. Participants heard sentences presented in −2, −4, −6, and −8‐dB S/N. Target words were semantically predictable or unpredictable. Participant identification of sentence type and target words was recorded and analyzed. Both groups were affected by increasing levels of noise, but non‐natives more strongly. Semantics aided native speakers under high levels of noise, but non‐native speakers under low levels of noise. Analysis of phonological errors shows that the most frequent phonological error was on the onset and vowel, but this was not...