Acquiring novel perceptual categories in a third language: Bengali‐English bilinguals’ perception and learning of Malayalam consonants.

Abstract

The present study examines the acquisition of novel non‐native speech contrasts by adult bilingual speakers of Bengali and English. One of the underlying issues in this study is the role that phonetic features may play in the development of new phonetic categories. For instance, features utilized in native contrasts may generalize in the learning of novel non‐native contrasts, even if they play a limited or no role in the initial perception of these non‐native contrasts [Polka (1992); Harnsberger (1998)]. To explore this feature generalization hypothesis, a high variability consonant identification training paradigm was used with ten Bengali‐English bilinguals who learned to identify 4 Malayalam place of articulation contrasts (dental versus retroflex nasals, dental versus retroflex lateral approximants, palatoalveolar versus retroflex voiceless fricatives, and alveolar tap versus retroflex approximant). The bilingual Bengali‐English listeners were selected for their extensive experience with the relevant place features (e.g., dental, retroflex, palatoalveolar, and alveolar), though Bengali and English lack any direct correspondents to the Malayalam contrasts. Bilingual performance was analyzed in terms of both patterns of perceptual assimilation as well as rate of acquisition of the novel non‐native contrasts.