Second Language Accent Faking Ability Depends on Musical Abilities, Not on Working Memory.

Marion Coumel,Markus Christiner,Susanne Maria Reiterer

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00257

Abstract

Studies involving direct language imitation tasks have shown that pronunciation ability is related to musical competence and working memory capacities. However, this type of task may measure individual differences in many different linguistic dimensions, other than just phonetic ones. The present study uses an indirect imitation task by asking participants to a fake a foreign accent in order to specifically target individual differences in phonetic abilities. Its aim is to investigate whether musical expertise and working memory capacities relate to phonological awareness (i.e., participants’ implicit knowledge about the phonological system of the target language and its structural properties at the segmental, suprasegmental, and phonotactic levels) as measured on this task. To this end, French native listeners (N = 36) graded how well German native imitators (N = 25) faked a French accent while speaking in German. The imitators also performed a musicality test, a self-assessment of their singing abilities and working memory tasks. The results indicate that the ability to fake a French accent correlates with singing ability and musical perceptual abilities, but not with working memory capacities. This suggests that heightened musical abilities may lead to an increased phonological awareness probably by providing participants with highly efficient memorization strategies and highly accurate long-term phonetic representations of foreign sounds. Comparison with data of previous studies shows that working memory could be implicated in the pronunciation learning process which direct imitation tasks target, whereas musical expertise influences both storing of knowledge and later retrieval here assessed via an indirect imitation task.

Highlights

An analysis performed on the users of the language-learning app Busuu1 showed that 41% of them were learning a language to improve their career opportunities
Among the French accent imitators, 4 participants were designated as being French native speakers by at least 20 raters, 9 participants were designated as being French native speakers by at least 10 raters and the rest was identified as being French native speakers by less than 10 raters. 2 participants were rated as being native speakers of German by at least 20 raters and 1 participant was rated as being a native speaker of another language by at least 20 raters
The task was efficient in detecting individual differences in pronunciation ability since some participants were clearly better than others at faking a French accent

Summary

Introduction

An analysis performed on the users of the language-learning app Busuu showed that 41% of them were learning a language to improve their career opportunities. Given that studies have shown that foreign-accented speech affects how listeners perceive their interlocutors (see the Accent Prestige Theory, Fuertes et al, 2002) and may even impact non-native speakers’ professional career. A plethora of studies is dedicated to the topic of foreign pronunciation learning and they can be split into two distinct categories. A second category of studies seeks to identify which abilities support the acquisition of foreign language pronunciation. This category focuses on the dynamic process of language learning itself. Findings in this line of research revealed the existence of considerable individual differences in pronunciation learning abilities arising from the influence of various factors. Working memory capacities (Papagno et al, 1991; Rota and Reiterer, 2009), empathy (Hu et al, 2012), mimicry ability (Reiterer et al, 2011; Hinton, 2013) and musical expertise (see for example, Slevc and Miyake, 2006; Oechslin et al, 2010) all constitute strong predictors of pronunciation learning abilities

Results

Discussion

Conclusion