Phonetic cue‐weighting in the acquisition of a second language: Evidence from Greek speakers of English.

Abstract

The most difficult speech‐sound contrasts for foreign‐language learners are often the ones that have multiple phonetic cues, especially if the cues are weighted differently in the foreign and native languages. Greek speakers of English were studied to determine on what basis they are making discrimination and identification between English vowels. The use of spectral and duration cues of English vowel minimal pairs (e.g., “beat” versus “bit”) in Greek speakers were studies using perception and discrimination tasks. There were two forms of perceptual, minimal pair identification tasks. One used natural stimuli and the other used matched vowel duration words to “force” the use of spectral cues. Performance was impaired for Greek speakers across both perceptual identification tasks compared to native speakers. But performance was the worst for Greek speakers for the matched duration condition. Interestingly, an AB‐X discrimination task with the same stimuli did not hamper the performance of the Greeks compared to the English in the same way. Pilot data from Greek children also showed similar patterns of performance across conditions to the Greek adults, but with a somewhat reduced ceiling. These results are discussed in terms of the strategies used to acquire new languages.