Asymmetric development of perception and production of lexical stress in Korean second‐language (L2) learners of English.

Abstract

This study explores perception and production of lexical stress information in L2 English learners whose L1 employs a fixed rhythmic pattern at the lexical level. Nineteen English L1 speakers and 14 Korean L2 learners of English were trained to learn 16 minimal stress nonword pairs with picture referents which are segmentally disambiguating in the last syllable (/dȝákunaɪ/ vs /dȝakúnɚ/). The eye‐tracking perception experiment revealed that English L1 speakers exploited lexical stress information of the first two syllables to spot the target word in the instruction, “Click on the (target word),” whereas Korean L2 learners’ identification of the target word was delayed until the last syllable. In their production of words in a carrier, “This is the (target word),” however, L2 learners used loudness and durational cue to indicate alternative prominence of the first two syllable as did English L1 speakers. These results imply the development of production and processing of lexical stress in L2 word learning can be asymmetrical. This asymmetry is attributable to the L1 which has a fixed (T)HLH accentual phrase pattern at the lexical level and thus provides little incentive for the lexically specified stress processing. [Work supported by Linguistics Dept., Ohio State University.]