Phonological neighborhood density and speech production in L1 and L2 English speakers

Abstract

Phonological Neighborhood Density (PND) affects speech production latencies, word durations, and acoustic-phonetic detail (e.g., Baese-Berk & Goldrick, 2009; Buz & Jaeger, 2016; Fox, Reilly, & Blumstein, 2015; Munson, 2013; Munson & Solomon, 2004; Wright, 2004). The nature of these effects has been debated actively. Some have argued that these effects reflect intentional articulatory modifications to increase intelligibility, while others have suggested that they are the consequence of planning processes. The purpose of this presentation is to examine whether these effects are present in second-language speakers of English whose first language is Korean. Because the mechanisms underlying these effects are unclear, examining whether non-native speakers also show sensitivity to PND will inform our understanding of the mechanisms that drive them. Moreover, studying non-native speakers of varying proficiency allows us to infer whether PND-driven variation in production emerges over the course of second-language acquisition. The production of multiple repetitions of high- and low-PND CVC words was collected from 17 native adult speakers of English and 19 adult L2 speakers of English whose L1 was Korean. Estimates of vocabulary size were also collected for both groups. Analyses of production latencies and vowel acoustics are ongoing. [Funding provided by a University of Minnesota Multicultural Summer Research Opportunity Program award to the first author.]