Estimating Korean EFL listeners’ perception of English vowels with reference to cross-language labelling

Abstract

This paper explores whether Korean EFL listeners perception of English vowels and their English vowel category development can be estimated from cross-language labelling between English and Korean. The paper also investigates whether cross-language labelling makes different predictions for General American English (GAE) vowels and British English (Received Pronunciation, RP) vowels, given that vowel category variation exists between the two accents. Thirty-six university students in Seoul completed cross-language labelling and English vowel identification. Fit indices were calculated based on cross-language labelling for both GAE and RP vowels in order to answer the questions posed. Specifically, the paper tested the assumption of the Speech Learning Model (SLM) that L2 category development is closely related to the perceived phonetic distance between L1 and L2 sounds by calculating fit indices. The results reveal that the fit indices computed had limitations in accounting for the identification accuracy of L2 vowels. The fit indices also made similar predictions for GAE and RP vowels, but there were accent and vowel category variations between GAE and RP. Thus, the overall results suggest that L2 vowel perception or L2 vowel category learning depends on factors such as L2 learners’ target language accent and their overall interlanguage phonological system, as well as the perceived phonetic distance between an L2 sound and its closest L1 counterpart.