Perception and production of American English consonants /v/ and /w/ by Hindi speakers of English

Abstract

This study examined the ability of Hindi speakers of English to perceive and produce American English (AE) consonants /v/ and /w/, which are difficult for Hindi speakers to distinguish (e.g., in “vest” and “west”). It also examined whether the Hindi listeners’ length of residence (LOR) in the US affected their performance. Two groups of Hindi speakers were included: Hindi speakers who had been in the US for more than 5 years and Hindi speakers who lived in India and used English as their second language. Participants performed perception and production tasks of naturally produced tokens of word forms containing /v/ and /w/. Hindi listeners performed significantly less accurately than the English listeners on all tasks. The non-significant differences between the two Hindi groups indicated that the Hindi US groups’ experience with the /v/-/w/ contrast in the US was insufficient to allow for perceptual learning of this contrast. The findings shed light on speech perception, production and comprehension (for lexical items that differ minimally, e.g., ‘viper vs. wiper’) challenges faced by native Hindi speakers learning English. This information can also be helpful for designing perception and production training programs for this population.