Imitation of second language sounds in relation to L2 perception and production

Abstract

This study reports findings from two experiments on second language learners, comparing their performance in an Imitation task to that in Identification and Read-Aloud tasks. Experiment 1 targeted English speakers׳ learning of Mandarin tones, while Experiment 2 investigated Korean speakers׳ learning of English consonants. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the Imitation task was generally easier for English speakers than the Identification and Read-Aloud tasks, suggesting that imitation was performed without some of the skills required by the other two tasks. As for Experiment 2, the Koreans were consistently less accurate in Imitation than in Read-Aloud, while their Imitation was more accurate than their Identification when the L2 sounds have a close counterpart in Korean. The results from both experiments revealed that the accuracy in Imitation was not always constrained by that in the Identification and Read-Aloud tasks. Hence it can be inferred that L2 imitation may not involve all the skills required by the other two tasks and probably bypasses some aspect of phonological encoding. More detailed predictions of the error patterns in the Imitation task based on Perception, Production, and Cascade models were compared. It was found that English speakers׳ confusion patterns in imitating Mandarin tones correlated to the same degree with the predictions of all three models, which may be because the learners׳ difficulty in perception and production was largely similar. On the other hand, Korean learners׳ errors in imitating English consonants were overall more accurately predicted by a Cascade model, suggesting that both perceptual and production imprecision aggravated imitation performance. The comparison of these two experiments corroborates that various factors may affect the relationships between L2 imitation, perception, and production.