The relationship between “native-like” L2 vowel production and perceptual judgments enhancement by native listeners

Abstract

The relationship between second language (L2) vowel production as a function of L2 experience and its perceptual judgments by native listeners of the language was investigated to determine whether the production improvement in the specific acoustics of L2 vowels give rise to higher judgement accuracy. A total of 20 Mandarin Chinese differing in the L2 experience (6 months vs. 2 years) were compared to ten native Korean speakers in their production of seven Korean vowels. The vowel production was used for an identification test by 23 native Korean speaking listeners to further verify the effects of L2 experience on the native Korean listeners’ judgments of Chinese speakers’ vowel production. For the analyses, F1 and F2 values of the initial vowels were measured and normalized across the three groups. The production results showed that the Korean mid vowels /e/ and /Λ/ were produced in a more native-like manner with increased L2 experience. As for the perception results, Chinese speakers’ non-native-like production of Korean vowels /e/ and /Щ/ showed high judgement accuracy, whereas more native-like vowels /u/ and /Λ/ displayed significantly lower accuracy. Overall, the acoustic distinctiveness, rather than native-likeness, of the L2 vowel categories was shown to yield higher accuracy for the perceptual judgments by native listeners. (Konkuk University)