Underlying sources of individual differences: Cognitive abilities in second language phonological development.

Abstract

Research on individual differences has identified factors constraining L2 acquisition in terms of a global performance; yet little progress has been made in identifying specific predictors of phonological acquisition. To explore such potential predictors in L2‐learners, working memory, selective attention, processing speed, vocabulary size, and naming speed in L1 and/or L2 were assessed. These scores were then compared to individual L2‐phonological acquisition index scores, which were obtained by combining the scores from three tasks: an ABX task (testing acquisition of English phonetic categories), a sequence repetition task (testing acquisition of English stress), and a speeded lexical decision task (testing the encoding of English syllable structure). The results were based on data from 20 Korean learners of English with varying lengths of US‐residence (LOR) and 10 English native speakers as controls. In all the tasks, the native speakers performed better than the longer‐LOR learners, who, in turn, did better than the shorter‐LOR learners. There were large individual differences within each group. Individual working memory measures were significantly correlated with the individual L2‐phonological acquisition index scores. Further, specific task scores correlated independently with specific cognitive measures, suggesting that a balanced mix of cognitive abilities can be the key to better phonological acquisition. [NIH‐NIDCD Training Grant No. T32‐DC00012.]