Covert contrasts in the acquisition of English high front vowels by native speakers of Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to report results of an investigation into the production of a covert contrast by native speakers of Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish in the acquisition of the English distinction between the high front vowels /i/ and /ɪ/. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable acoustic distinction made by a language learner between target-language phonemes that is nevertheless not perceived by native speakers of the target language. We gathered data on both the production and perception of this vowel contrast from a total of 36 second-language learners from the three native-language backgrounds, along with data from an additional 22 native-speaker controls. The findings are that about two-thirds of our second-language learners produced a covert contrast between the targeted vowel phonemes. In light of the results from research on child language acquisition and disordered speech, our data suggest that a covert contrast is not limited to the domain of the acquisition of a first language, either by normally developing children or by those with speech disorders.