The Role of Awareness in L2 Learning : Evidence From Chinese Speakers' Learning of a Phonological Alternation in Korean

Abstract

Many SLA researchers have explored the role of awareness in L2 learning. Recently, Williams (2004, 2005) offered empirical evidence that L2 learning is feasible without awareness, while Hama and Leow (2010) showed the inability of unaware learners through the hybrid design that measured unawareness both at the encoding stage and at the retrieval stage. This study adopted Hama and Leow’s design to examine whether awareness plays any role in L2 learning of a phonological alternation, specifically, in Chinese speakers’ learning of a Korean palatalization. The experiment consisted of the pretest and the posttest, the three times of training tasks, think-aloud verbal reports during the training tasks, and the postexposure questionnaire. The participants’ performance was measured by the pretest and the posttest, in which they were asked to judge whether the auditory prime of a word given on the computer monitor was correct or not. The results revealed the positive role of awareness; the L2 learners who were aware of the phonological alternation (both at the level of noticing and understanding) showed better performance in their perception of the correct pronunciation than those who were not aware of the alternation. No significant difference was found between the two aware groups (i.e., the noticing group and the understanding group).