Second language word segmentation in a fluent speech listening task.

Abstract

Extracting words from a continuous speech stream is a complex task involving the integration of multiple linguistic cues. Like infants, adults have been shown to use both distributional information through statistical learning, and metrical and intonational information, when segmenting words in a second language. This study investigates adults’ native language influence on speech segmentation, and the extent to which linguistic knowledge is augmented by exposure to fluent, natural speech in a second language. In the experiment, English listeners completed a word learning task in an unfamiliar language, Finnish. Next, they listened to a fluent speech passage which contained learned words, as well as syllable sequences controlled for the same frequencies and transitional probabilities as the real words. English speakers have been shown to use acoustic stress cues to locate word boundaries, and while Finnish has a regular stress pattern, other phonotactic patterns could affect English listeners' segmentation abilities. Afterwards, they completed a forced‐choice identification task, choosing from pairs of real and non‐words, including incorrectly segmented syllable sequences, to identify the token which is more likely a word in Finnish. The behavioral data are analyzed for patterns reflecting the integration of native language linguistic knowledge and statistical learning abilities.