Crosslingusitic influence of sub-syllabic units in L2 syllable processing by Korean learners of English as a second language

Najeong Kim, Purdue University

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the cross-linguistic influence of sub-syllabic units in processing syllables in the second language (L2) by comparing Korean speakers learning English as a Second Language (ESL) with differing proficiency levels (low vs. high) to monolingual English speakers. According to Flege's Speech Learning Model (SLM) (1995), L2 learners perceive L2 sounds through an L1 categories filter which causes difficulty in the accurate production of L2 sounds. Based on the SLM, this study hypothesized that due to the L1 influence Korean ESL learners with a low proficiency level would process L2 syllables through their L1 sub-syllabic unit (e.g., the body unit, /khæ / as in a word, /khæt/). In comparison, it was hypothesized that Korean ESL learners with a high proficiency level would process L2 syllables through the L2 sub-syllabic unit (e.g., the rime unit, /æt/ as in a word, /khæt/) in a way similar to monolingual English speakers. The hypotheses were tested using two tasks. First, the participants (fifteen in each of the three groups) were asked to rate how similar the pairs of monosyllabic English non-words sharing the rime unit (the rime pairs) and those sharing the body unit (the body pairs) sounded on a 7-point scale in a sound judgment task. Second, they were asked to combine two monosyllabic English non-words into a new monosyllabic non-word by working with the beginning part of the first word and the ending part of the second word in a blending task. An ANOVA analysis showed that Korean ESL learners demonstrated the same level of preference for the rime unit and the body unit in the sound similarity task, while they showed preference for the body unit in the blending task. The performance of the Korean ESL learners was significantly different from that of the monolingual English speakers who showed a preference for the rime unit in both tasks. However, there was no significant difference between two groups with differing proficiency levels in both tasks. These findings point to the difficulty of the acquisition of the sub-syllabic unit in English by Korean ESL learners due to the continuing influence of L1 sub-syllabic unit. The difficulty Korean ESL learners undergo in the acquisition of the English sub-syllabic unit might be attributable not only to the complex interplay of L1 phonology, but also to the English education system in Korea. Those factors prevent Korean speakers from perceiving English syllables accurately and from noticing the riming words in the English lexicon, a necessary step for the restructuring of phonological representation into the onset-rime structure. Another purpose of the present study was to test whether Korean ESL learners are sensitive to the frequency of sub-syllabic units in English in order to examine the emergenists' view that the sub-syllabic unit in L2 emerges from the learners' generalization of statistical distributional patterns of two adjacent phonemes (the strong association between the first consonant and the vowel) in L2. Four types of syllables (CV+VC, CV+vc, cv+VC, and cv+vc) were used as stimuli through the manipulation of the frequency levels of the sub-syllabic units (low vs. high). An ANOVA analysis indicated that the monolingual English speakers were not sensitive to the frequency of the sub-syllabic units, contrary to the findings of previous studies (Treiman et al., 2000; Lee and Goldrick, 2008). Korean ESL learners with a high proficiency level showed no sensitivity to the frequency of sub-syllabic units with an exception of the rime frequency in the blending task. Korean ESL learners with a low proficiency level showed a sensitivity to the body frequency but not to the rime frequency in the sound similarity task, but they showed no sensitivity to the frequency of sub-syllabic units in the blending task. Overall, the emergence of the sub-syllabic units does not seem to be the product of statistical distributional patterns. The inconsistency of the results might be due to the task difference. The source for the sub-syllabic units needs further study. Two different paragraph spaces are used on an abstract page. First three lines are called introduction block or introduction paragraph. Use only single space with before/after space of zero. On the main abstract paragraphs, it is treated as regular paragraphs applying consistent line space to your chapters.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Benedicto, Purdue University.

Subject Area

English as a Second Language|Foreign Language|Educational psychology

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