Acoustic Correlates of English Stress in Korean L2 Learners’ Perception

Abstract

This study reports on the acoustic correlates of English stress in Korean L2 learners’ perception. As L1 phonetics and phonology exert an influence on L2 perception, we conducted a perception experiment to answer the question of which acoustic cues play a role in the perception of English stress by Korean speakers. Additionally, on the basis of the previous studies showing that Korean L2 learners would be able to acquire a native-like pitch contrast in producing English stress but not the other phonetic correlates such as duration and intensity, we examine the question of whether errors in L2 production are attributed to errors in L2 perception. The results showed that Korean L2 listeners are most sensitive to pitch, while they are not attentive to intensity or duration much when judging the locus of English stress, which is distinct from what native L1 listeners showed in our experiment. We argue that Korean listeners rely on pitch more than other acoustic cues in English stress perception, due to L1 transfer - pitch being the most reliable cue for accentual phrase and/or word segmentation in Korean. Also, this finding suggests that Korean learners’ production errors should be ascribed to their deafness to the contrast of such acoustic features.