Extensive residence in a second language environment modifies perceptual strategies for suprasegmental...

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Second Language Acquisition
• Auditory Perception

Background:

• Languages vary in acoustic cue importance for speech categorization, posing challenges for second language (L2) learners.
• The capacity of adult L2 learners to develop new perceptual strategies for speech remains an open question.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how extensive English L2 immersion affects speech perception strategies in native Mandarin speakers.
• To examine changes in dimension-selective-attention ability in Mandarin speakers learning English.

Main Methods:

• Comparison of experienced (UK residence > 3 years) and inexperienced (UK residence < 1 year) native Mandarin speakers.
• Assessment of perceptual weighting of acoustic cues (duration, pitch, amplitude) in speech and music categorization tasks.
• Evaluation of selective attention to acoustic dimensions in speech perception.

Main Results:

• Experienced Mandarin speakers showed more native-like weighting of duration cues for L2 suprasegmental categorization compared to inexperienced speakers.
• Both groups of Mandarin speakers consistently weighted pitch higher than duration for musical beat categorization.
• Mandarin speakers struggled to ignore pitch and selectively attend to amplitude in speech, unlike native English speakers.

Conclusions:

• Adult L2 experience can lead to context-specific retuning of perceptual strategies.
• Global acoustic salience, influencing both speech and music perception, appears more resistant to change with L2 acquisition.