Non-native speakers misperceptions of English vowels and consonants: Evidence from Korean adults in UK

Abstract

There is very little evidence of research in the receptive dimension of phonological interlanguage - how non-native speakers manifest their competence in processing phonological input. A simple, but effective, experiment is described in this paper in which the receptive interlanguage phonological competence of non-native speakers is investigated. The target is British English vowel and consonant phonology for twenty Korean adults in higher education in UK. Their data indicates the major difficulties they display in perceiving British English consonants and vowels, as opposed to - and contrasted with - producing them. This article discusses the paucity of receptive phonological data, presents a methodology which includes a contrastive phonological analysis, exploits a parallel study in productive phonological interlanguage and produces a comprehensive analysis of the subjects' misperceptions (and their mispronunciations). It also speculates on the strategies they used when their interlanguage phonology proved inadequate. Finally, individual and group phonological profiles are provided, against which published pronunciation materials are measured - and shown to be inadequate in many cases. The study shows the importance of an adequate phonological competence and the importance of adequately designed teaching materials.