Perceptual and production training of allophones and phonemes in Spanish.

Abstract

American English learners of Spanish often do not acquire native‐like pronunciation of intervocalic /d/, tap, and trill in words like CODO “elbow,” CORO “choir,” and CORRO “I run.” The trill proves difficult because it does not exist in English. Although the tap exists as an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in English, students of Spanish must learn to process it as a phoneme rather than an allophone. Similarly, learners have difficulty acquiring the spirantization of voiced stops, where intervocalic /d/ is produced as a voiced dental fricative or approximant. This study investigates whether American English learners of Spanish can be trained to perceive and produce the intervocalic /d/, tap, and trill contrasts in Spanish. Both perceptual and production training methods were used. Past research has reported that perceptual training alone improves both perception and production, and that production training alone improves both as well; however, the production training studies have not been limited to production as trainees have been able to listen to the training stimuli. This study systematically controls both training modalities and introduces a third training methodology that includes both perception and production to discover whether perceptual, production, or combination training is most effective. [Research supported by NSF.]