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Dynamic targets in the acquisition of L2 English vowels

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Schwartz G., Aperliński G., Kaźmierski K., Weckwerth J.

Research in Language

2016

vol. 14

issue 2

181-202

This paper presents acoustic data on the dynamic properties of the FLEECE and TRAP vowels in the speech of two groups of Polish users of English. Results reveal that the more proficient group users, made up of teachers and professors with professional-level proficiency in English, produce more dramatic patterns of formant movement, reminiscent of native productions, than first year students. It is argued that vowel inherent spectra change (VISC) is an inherent aspect of English phonology, originated in interactions between vowels and neighboring consonants, and later generalized to the vowel system as a whole. By contrast, Polish is a language with a minimal role of VISC. Consequently, successful acquisition of L2 English vowels involves not only the mastery of vowels in F1-F2 space, but also formant trajectories over time.

Spectral dynamics in L1 and L2 vowel perception

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Schwartz G., Aperliński G., Jekiel M., Malarski K.

Research in Language

2016

vol. 14

issue 1

61-77

This paper presents a study of L1 and L2 vowel perception by Polish learners of English. Employing the Silent Center paradigm (e.g. Strange et al. 1983), by which listeners are presented with different portions of a vowel, a force choice identification task was carried out. Due to differences in the vowel systems of the two languages, it was hypothesized that stimulus type should have minimal effects for L1 Polish vowel perception since Polish vowels are relatively stable in quality. In L2 English, depending on proficiency level, listeners were expected to adopt a more dynamic approach to vowel identification and show higher accuracy rates on the SC tokens. That is, listeners were expected to attend more to dynamic formant cues, or vowel inherent spectral change (VISC; see e.g. Morrison and Assmann 2013) in vowel perception. Results for identification accuracy for the most part were consistent with these hypotheses. Implications of VISC for the notion of cross-language phonetic similarity, crucial to models of L2 speech acquisition, are also discussed.

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2 Research in Language

2 Aperliński G.

2 Schwartz G.

1 Jekiel M.

1 Kaźmierski K.

1 Malarski K.

1 Weckwerth J.

2 2016

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Dynamic targets in the acquisition of L2 English vowels

Spectral dynamics in L1 and L2 vowel perception