The Perception of English Vowels by Native Korean and Mandarin Speakers

Alexis Zhou, Purdue University

Abstract

Second language (L2) learners experience difficulties discriminating L2 contrasts that are absent in their L1 (Aoyama et al., 2004; Bohn, 1995; Flege et al., 1997), often due to interreference from the learner’s L1 inventory (Flege, 1987, 1995). Popular theoretical frameworks, such as SLM (Flege, 1995), PAM (Best & Tyler, 2007), and L2LP (Escudero, 2005; van Leussen & Escudero, 2015), all make predictions about the acquisition of L2 phonemes. However, these frameworks do not consider the extent of L1 allophonic variability as a factor in the acquisition of L2 contrasts. In order to begin addressing this, the present study compared the perceptual discrimination of English vowel contrasts /ɪ-i/ and /ɛ-æ/ by two groups, L1 Mandarin and Korean learners. Both languages have only one phonemic category in the vowel areas where English makes the two relevant contrasts. Both members of each contrast are likely to be assimilated to the only existing L1 category. Furthermore, Mandarin /ɛ/ is but one allophone of a great number of possible contextual realizations of the mid vowel phonemic /E/, while Korean lacks this allophonic variability. While the two groups of leaners are expected to be comparable in their perception of the /ɪ-i/ contrast, Mandarin speakers could have more difficulty in their perception of the /ɛ-æ/ distinction. This prediction is based on the assumption that Mandarin listeners are more likely to accept a non-native realization as a deviant but possible version of the L1 mid-vowel phoneme due to its high variability. To test this, 16 L1 Standard Mandarin and 14 L1 Korean speakers residing in the United States performed an online AX perceptual discrimination task. The results showed that the two groups discriminated /ɪ-i/ vowels with similar accuracy. The Mandarin group was less accurate than the Korean group on the discrimination of the /ɛ-æ/ pairs. This finding is compatible with the hypothesis that greater allophonic variability in the phonemic category of the L1 can make the acquisition of the relevant L2 categories more challenging. These findings suggest that allophonic variability in the L1 needs to be taken into account when making theory-driven predictions concerning the acquisition of specific phonological categories of the L2.

Degree

M.A.

Advisors

Dmitrieva, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Acoustics|Asian Studies|Foreign language education|Language|Linguistics

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