Word Segmentation on English Learning : Phonetic or Lexical?

Abstract

This study investigates what the key factors are on word segmentation on L2(English) learning: phonetic or lexical? Previous researches on the second language learners' abilities to segment L2 speech in terms of phonetic cues focused on the presence or absence of allophonic cues. For example, presence or absence of aspiration or glottalization determines the location of word boundaries. Not taking into consideration other potential cues such as lexical information or word frequency, it is not clear which cues of linguistic subparts play a main role in word segmentation on English learners. To control potential lexical influences, sequences of non-words are examined with strong phonetic cues across word boundaries. If listeners rely on phonetic cues in segmenting words, non-word sequences should be perceived as real word sequences are perceived. We compare the perception rate of non-words with that of real words. It is hypothesized that different perception rates may be resulted from cues other than phonetic ones. 40 Korean college learners of English participated in an English perception task for the strong phonetic cue of aspiration in both real and non-words. The results show that learners' perception was better on real words than on non-words, suggesting lexical information is contributing to English word segmentation on L2 learning.