Abstract
Perception of sounds of a second language (L2) presents difficulties for non-native speakers which can be improved with training (Bradlow, Pisoni, Akahane-Yamada & Tohkura, 1997; Logan, Lively & Pisoni, 1991; Iverson & Evans, 2009). The aim of this study was to compare three different English vowel perceptual training programmes using audio (A), audiovisual (AV) and video (V) modes in non-native speakers with Spanish as native language (L1). 47 learners of English with Spanish as L1 were allocated to three different vowel training groups (AT, AVT, VT) and were given five training sessions to assess their improvement in English vowel perception. Additionally, participants were recorded before and after training to measure their improvement in the production of English vowels. Results showed that participants improved their perception and production of English vowels regardless of their training modality with no evidence of a benefit of visual information. These results also suggest that there is a lot of individual differences in perception and production of L2 vowels which may be related to a complex relation between speech perceptual and production mechanisms.
Highlights
Speech perception in a second language (L2) is affected by the listener’s native language (L1) (Best & Tyler, 2007; Flege, 1995), but improvement in perception can be achieved with perceptual training (Bradlow et al, 1997; Logan, Lively & Pisoni, 1991; Iverson & Evans, 2009)
A logistic regression analysis was used in R with time, group (AT, video-only training (VT) and audio-visual training (AVT) training groups), test presentation mode (A, AV, V) and vowel (11 monophthongs) as fixed effects; participant and stimulus were treated as random factors
This suggests that there was no difference in the effectiveness of auditory, visual or audio-visual training and the vowel identification capacity that L2 learners achieved after training (Table 1)
Summary
Speech perception in a second language (L2) is affected by the listener’s native language (L1) (Best & Tyler, 2007; Flege, 1995), but improvement in perception can be achieved with perceptual training (Bradlow et al, 1997; Logan, Lively & Pisoni, 1991; Iverson & Evans, 2009). The aim of this study is to compare the impact of three different training modalities: audio (A), audio-visual (AV) and video-alone (V), on the perception and production of English vowels by L2 learners with Spanish as L1. The relation between L2 sounds and the learners’ native categories affects the way in which novel L2 phonemes are perceived (Iverson & Evans, 2009). The specialisation mechanism results in reduced perceptual sensitivity within the L1 phoneme inventory (Kuhl et al, 1992) and this may become an obstacle when learning non-native sounds in adulthood
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