THE EFFECTS OF TALKER VARIABILITY AND FREQUENCY OF EXPOSURE ON THE ACQUISITION OF SPOKEN WORD KNOWLEDGE

Takumi Uchihara,Pavel Trofimovich,Stuart Webb,Kazuya Saito

doi:10.1017/s0272263121000218

Takumi Uchihara, Pavel Trofimovich + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263121000218

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Abstract

AbstractEighty Japanese learners of English as a foreign language encountered 40 target words in one of four experimental conditions (three encounters, six encounters, three encounters with talker variability, and six encounters with talker variability). A picture-naming test was conducted three times (pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest) and elicited speech samples were scored in terms of form-meaning connection (spoken form recall) and word stress accuracy (stress placement accuracy and vowel duration ratio). Results suggested that frequency of exposure consistently promoted the recall of spoken forms, whereas talker variability was more closely related to the enhancement of word stress accuracy. These findings shed light on how input quantity (frequency) and quality (variability) affect different stages of lexical development and provide implications for vocabulary teaching.

Highlights

Exposure to input through reading or listening is considered an important driving force for second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition (Ellis, 2002; Krashen, 1989; Nation, 2013; Webb & Nation, 2017)
In response to these research gaps, the current study aimed to examine the effects of talker variability and frequency of exposure on spoken word knowledge targeting Japanese learners studying English as a foreign language (EFL)
At the immediate posttest, high frequency was especially useful for spoken form recall, whether or not high variability was present in the learning input

Summary

Introduction

Exposure to input through reading or listening is considered an important driving force for second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition (Ellis, 2002; Krashen, 1989; Nation, 2013; Webb & Nation, 2017). The quality of input matters for enriching and consolidating word knowledge through seeing and hearing words in different contexts (e.g., more vs less informative contexts) and forms (e.g., derived and inflected forms) (Webb & Nation, 2017). Talker variability—characterized by differences in linguistic and nonlinguistic properties between and within talkers (e.g., voices, pitch height, speaking rate, speaking style, and loudness)—is one of the useful sources of variability that enhances input quality and facilitates vocabulary learning. Talker variability facilitates different aspects of L2 acquisition, including lexical knowledge of forms and form-meaning mappings (Barcroft & Sommers, 2014), recognition/perception accuracy of temporal and spectral features (Logan et al, 1991), and production accuracy (Bradlow et al, 1997). The benefits of talker variability can be attributed to talker-specific characteristics (i.e., indexical information) available in different voices, such that processing talker variability helps create more “associative hooks” with which learners can retrieve and recall spoken forms of words efficiently and fluently (Barcroft & Sommers, 2005, p. 410)

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