Effects of L1 language background and L2 experience on adult L2 acquisition of five suprasegmentals

Abstract

This study investigated how various adult groups with different mother tongues and diverse levels of experience with an L2 acquire the suprasegmental phonetic cues of the L2 speech. Two hundred subjects in ten groups took part in the experiment. The results show that the L1 language background and L2 experience exhibit dissimilar influences on the acquisition of the L2 suprasegmentals. More specifically, the L1 background impacts the fluency of L2 speech more strongly in the early stage, while L2 experience mitigates the L1 effect dramatically in the later stage for the adult L2 learners. The acquisition of L2 suprasegmental cues, however, triggers an uneven influence on native speakers’ judgments of the fluency of L2 speech; speech rate has the most influence on judging L2 fluency, while F0 range has the least. Among three L1 groups, comparatively inexperienced Japanese learners of Korean control these cues well compared to English and Mandarin learners of Korean as an L2.