The Impact of Phonetic Training in the Perception and Poduction of European Portuguese Stops by Mandarin Speakers

Abstract

This study aims to improve knowledge regarding the process of L2 consonants acquisition and investigate the effectiveness of training strategies that can favor its learning. It compares the effect of a phonetic training using two High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) methods on training the perception of European Portuguese (EP) stop consonants by Mandarin native speakers, learners of EP as a L2. More specifically, it will investigate if the expected improvement is greater under the HVPT approach using an identification task (ID) or through an AX discrimination task (DIS). In a pretest-training-posttest design, thirty L2 learners of EP will be divided into 2 experimental groups and a control group. Experimental groups will differ in the training method: ID task and DIS task. Participants will be tested on their ability to perceive the target sounds presented in non-words and real words before training, after training and two months later. Thus, this study will address the following questions: a) whether training can improve the perception and production of trained as well as untrained segments, b) whether improvement generalizes to novel stimuli and talkers, c) if improvement is retained over time, and d) which training method is more effective (ID or DIS).