The perception of English coda obstruents by Mandarin and Korean second language learners

Abstract

This study investigates the perception of English obstruents by learners whose native language is either Mandarin, which does not permit coda obstruents, or Korean, which neutralizes laryngeal and manner contrasts into voiceless stop codas. The stimuli are native productions of eight English obstruents /p b t d f v θ ð/ combined with the vowel /ɑ/ in different prosodic contexts. Forty-one Mandarin and 40 Korean speakers identified the consonant from the auditorily presented stimuli. The results show that the two groups do not differ in their accuracy in the onset position, indicating that they are comparable in their proficiency. However, the Mandarin speakers are more accurate in the coda position than the Koreans. When the fricatives and stops are analyzed separately, it shows that the two groups do not differ with fricatives, yet the Mandarin speakers are more accurate than the Koreans with stops. These findings suggest that having stop codas in their L1 does not necessarily facilitate Koreans’ acquisition of the L2 sounds. Despite their L1 differences, the two groups display very similar perceptual biases in their error patterns. However, not all of them can be explained by L1 transfer or universal markedness, suggesting other language-independent factors in L2 perception.