Abstract
To examine whether L1 vowel inventory size could be a contributing factor to the use of temporal cues in L2 vowel perception, this study assessed the perception of English /i-ɪ/ by 66 learners of four different L1s: Danish, Portuguese, Catalan and Russian. The L2 learners performed a forced-choice identification task containing natural and duration-manipulated stimuli. Findings suggest that the participants’ over-reliance on duration cues seem to be partially related to their L1 vowel inventory size. The participants with the greatest L1 vowel inventory (Danish) demonstrated the most native-like vowel perception and the participants with the smallest L1 vowel inventory (Russian) over-relied on duration cues more than the other learners. Interestingly, the participants with somewhat comparable L1 vowel inventories (Portuguese and Catalan) performed similarly.
Highlights
Acquiring a target-like pronunciation in a foreign language is frequently seen as a more challenging task than acquiring second language (L2) grammar or vocabulary
Some researchers have suggested that L2 vowel acquisition, apart from perceptual similarity, is afected by the learners’ L1 vowel inventory size, so that speakers of languages with large vowel inventories have a beneit over speakers of languages with smaller vowel inventories (Fox, Flege, & Munro, 1995; Frieda & Nozawa, 2007; Hacquard, Walter, & Marantz, 2007; Iverson & Evans, 2007). his is because speakers of languages with large vowel inventories would have gained experience in tuning to small-scale spectral diferences from their L1, making the perception of L2 vowels an easier task
He aim of this article was to determine whether the size of L1 vowel inventory afects the use of perceptual cues used to discern between L2 vowels
Summary
Acquiring a target-like pronunciation in a foreign language is frequently seen as a more challenging task than acquiring second language (L2) grammar or vocabulary. He acquisition of this vowel distinction is of particular interest for the foreign language learners of the present study as none of the L1s (Danish, Portuguese, Catalan and Russian) has a short lax vowel spectrally similar to the English /ɪ/, whereas all of them have a high front vowel similar to the English /i/.
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