Abstract
Speech recognition by second language (L2) learners in optimal and suboptimal conditions has been examined extensively with English as the target language in most previous studies. This study extended existing experimental protocols (Wang et al., 2013) to investigate Mandarin speech recognition by Japanese learners of Mandarin at two different levels (elementary vs. intermediate) of proficiency. The overall results showed that in addition to L2 proficiency, semantic context, F0 contours, and listening condition all affected the recognition performance on the Mandarin sentences. However, the effects of semantic context and F0 contours on L2 speech recognition diverged to some extent. Specifically, there was significant modulation effect of listening condition on semantic context, indicating that L2 learners made use of semantic context less efficiently in the interfering background than in quiet. In contrast, no significant modulation effect of listening condition on F0 contours was found. Furthermore, there was significant interaction between semantic context and F0 contours, indicating that semantic context becomes more important for L2 speech recognition when F0 information is degraded. None of these effects were found to be modulated by L2 proficiency. The discrepancy in the effects of semantic context and F0 contours on L2 speech recognition in the interfering background might be related to differences in processing capacities required by the two types of information in adverse listening conditions.
Highlights
IntroductionSpeech recognition differences between native and non-native listeners have been examined extensively in previous studies, which have consistently showed that adults learning a second language (L2) are at a disadvantage in speech recognition as compared with native listeners, especially in adverse listening conditions (Gat and Keith, 1978; Mayo et al, 1997; Bradlow and Bent, 2002; Bradlow and Alexander, 2007; Golestani et al, 2009; Oliver et al, 2012)
Speech recognition accuracy results showed that the four main effects were all significant [semantic context: F(1,55) = 86.747, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.612; listening condition: F(1,55) = 60.181, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.522; F0 contours: F(1,55) = 6.512, p = 0.014, η2 = 0.106; L2 proficiency, F(1,58) = 41.707, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.431], revealing that all the factors influenced Mandarin speech recognition when L2 listeners are engaged in the task
Mandarin speech recognition accuracy improved with increasing L2 proficiency, which was compromised by the lack of sentence context and natural F0 contours and by the presence of interfering speech
Summary
Speech recognition differences between native and non-native listeners have been examined extensively in previous studies, which have consistently showed that adults learning a second language (L2) are at a disadvantage in speech recognition as compared with native listeners, especially in adverse listening conditions (Gat and Keith, 1978; Mayo et al, 1997; Bradlow and Bent, 2002; Bradlow and Alexander, 2007; Golestani et al, 2009; Oliver et al, 2012). A different class of explanations attributes the extra difficulty of non-native listeners under adverse listening conditions to issues at higher processing levels On such an account, energetic and informational masking by interfering sounds disrupts phonemic identification comparably for both native and non-native listeners, but the more detrimental effects are due to cumulative effects of interfering sounds on nonnative listeners’ access to and integration of various types of linguistic information such as prosodic, semantic, syntactic and pragmatic cues (Bradlow and Alexander, 2007; Golestani et al, 2009; Calandruccio et al, 2010; Oliver et al, 2012)
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