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Early learners' discrimination of second-language vowels.

Anders Højen1, James E Flege

  • 1Speech and Hearing Sciences Division, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama 35294-2041, USA. anders@andershojen.dk

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|May 20, 2006
PubMed
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Second-language (L2) learners show significant perceptual learning in vowel discrimination. However, early L2 learners’ auditory systems differ from native speakers, indicating limited plasticity after native language (L1) attunement.

Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Auditory Perception
  • Second Language Acquisition

Background:

  • The extent of perceptual system plasticity after native language (L1) sound system attunement remains unclear.
  • Understanding second-language (L2) vowel discrimination is crucial for assessing auditory plasticity in adults.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate L2 vowel discrimination in early L2 learners.
  • To investigate the impact of native language (L1) attunement on perceptual plasticity for L2 sounds.

Main Methods:

  • An AXB test was used to assess English vowel discrimination by native Spanish early learners and monolingual Spanish and English speakers.
  • Experiments were conducted with varying interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 1000 ms and 0 ms.
  • Procedures were optimized to reduce discrimination scores for challenging foreign vowel contrasts.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Native Spanish monolinguals performed at near-chance levels on difficult English vowel contrasts.
  • Early learners demonstrated considerable perceptual learning, achieving high discrimination scores, similar to English monolinguals.
  • Significant differences between early learners and English monolinguals at a 0-ms ISI suggest incomplete perceptual plasticity.

Conclusions:

  • Early second-language learners exhibit substantial perceptual learning in discriminating L2 vowels.
  • Native language attunement may limit the plasticity of the perceptual system for L2 sound contrasts.
  • Auditory systems of early L2 learners are not identical to those of native speakers, even after extensive exposure.