Individual differences in phonetic drift by English-speaking learners of Spanish

Abstract

Second language learning affects L1 pronunciation even in early stages of adult L2 acquisition (e.g., Guion 2003, Chang 2012), an effect sometimes called “phonetic drift.” English voiceless stops assimilate to Korean stops in novice L1 English-L2 Korean learners in Korea, arguably due to English voiceless stops and Korean aspirated stops being linked to the same phonological category (Chang 2012), and the “novelty” of the Korean language input with its longer VOTs (Chang 2014). We tested whether novice L1 English-L2 Spanish learners in the United States also show assimilatory L2-to-L1 effects. Stronger typological and orthographic similarities might lead speakers to equate English and Spanish stops, but phonetic differences—short-lag VOT on voiceless stops and pre-voicing of voiced stops in Spanish—might impede L2-to-L1 assimilation. Monolingual English college-students were recorded every other week for the first 12 weeks of an introductory Spanish course. VOT data show considerable individual differences—some subjects show assimilation, some dissimilation, between English and Spanish stops. This suggests that while orthography and typological similarity may play a role, how a learner’s first and second language interact in novice adult L2 acquisition is also affected by individual factors such as perceptual sensitivity to phonetic differences, sociolinguistics considerations, and possibly speaker strategies for maintaining contrast (e.g., Nielsen 2011).