Non‐native and second language perception of Spanish vowels by Californian English listeners.

Abstract

The present study investigates multiple category assimilation in Californian English listeners’ cross‐language and L2 perception of Spanish vowels, as produced in Lima and Madrid. In labeling and XAB tasks, monolingual California English listeners as well as beginning and advanced learners of Spanish classified 100 Peruvian and 100 Iberian Spanish tokens in terms of 10 native English vowel categories by choosing from English words containing the vowels. Learners of Spanish also identified the Spanish tokens by choosing from the five Spanish vowels. The stimuli were isolated vowels extracted from nonwords produced by 10 female and 10 male monolingual speakers of Spanish from Lima and Madrid. The vowels were produced in the /fVfe/ context and were embedded in a carrier phrase. The results show that Californian English listeners perceived Spanish vowels from both varieties as more than one native vowel category and that this use of extra L1 categories in L2 perception decreased with experience with Spanish. Furthermore, greater multiple category assimilation to native English categories correlated with lower correct identification of the same vowels in the Spanish task. Therefore, multiple category assimilation may be the cause of the problems that Californian English learners have when perceiving Spanish vowels.