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L2 speech learning in adulthood and phonological short-term memory

100%
Aliaga-García C., Mora J. C., Cerviño-Povedano E.
Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
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2011
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vol. 47
1
EN
The aim of the present study is to extend research on individual differences in cognitive ability and second language acquisition by exploring the relationship between PSTM and L2 speech learning in advanced EFL learners. The participants (N=60) were a subset of a larger group of Catalan-Spanish bilingual EFL learners participating in 10 60-minute high-variability phonetic training sessions on the perception of the 11 British English monophthongs. Perceptual accuracy was assessed at pre- and post-test through categorization and discrimination tasks based on 5 monophthongal vowels (/i: ɪ æ ʌ ɑ:/). PSTM capacity measures were obtained at post-test using a SNWR task consisting of CVC Catalan nonwords on the basis of which participants were assigned to either low or high PSTM capacity groups The high PSTM group was found to obtain higher accuracy scores and greater perceptual accuracy gains than the low PSTM group. These results suggest that PSTM may play a role in L2 speech learning and may be involved in learners’ ability to successfully form phonetic categories for L2 sounds.
2
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Pre-fortis shortening in Czech English: A production and reaction-time study

88%
Skarnitzl R., Šturm P.
Research in Language
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2016
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vol. 14
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issue 1
1-14
EN
This study focuses on the production and perception of English words with a fortis vs. lenis obstruent in the syllable coda. The contrast is mostly cued by the duration of the preceding vowel, which is shorter before fortis than before lenis sounds in native speech. In the first experiment we analyzed the production of 10 Czech speakers of English and compared them to two native controls. The results showed that the Czech speakers did not sufficiently exploit duration to cue the identity of the word-final obstruent. In the second experiment we manipulated C and V durations in target words to transplant the native ratios onto the Czech-accented speech, enhancing the fortis–lenis contrast, and vice versa. 108 listeners took part in a word-monitoring task in which reaction times were measured. The hypothesized advantage to items in which the target word (with a fortis or lenis obstruent) was semantically congruent with the following context was not confirmed, and subsequent analyses showed that the words’ frequency of use and the collocations they enter into strongly affect speech processing and correlate to a large degree with the reaction times.
3
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Accommodation of L2 Speech in a Repetition Task: Exploring Paralinguistic Imitation

88%
Burin L., Paris Diderot University P., lea.burin@univ-paris-diderot.fr
Research in Language
|
2018
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vol. 16
|
issue 4
EN
Phonetic convergence is the process by which a speaker adapts his/her speech to sound more similar to his/her interlocutor. While most studies analysing this process have been conducted amongst speakers sharing the same language or variety, this experiment focuses on imitation between non-native and native speakers in a repetition task. The data is a fragment from the ANGLISH corpus designed by Anne Tortel (Tortel, 2008). 40 French speakers (10 male intermediate, 10 male advanced, 10 female intermediate and 10 female advanced learners) were asked to repeat a set of 20 sentences produced by British native speakers. Segmental (vowel quality), suprasegmental (vowel duration) and voice quality were analysed. Level of proficiency, gender and model talker were taken as independent variables. Level appeared not to be a relevant parameter due to a high amount of inter-individual variability amongst groups. Somewhat contradictory results were observed for vowel duration and F1-F2 distance for male learners converged more than female learners. Our hypothesis that low vowels display a higher degree of imitation, and especially within the F1 dimension (Babel, 2012), was partially validated. Convergence in vowel duration in order to sound more native-like was also observed (Zając, 2013). Regarding the analysis of voice quality, and more particularly of creaky voice, observations suggest that some advanced female learners creaked more than the native speakers and more in the reading task, which indicate, both linguistic idiosyncrasy and accommodation towards the native speakers. Low vowels seem also to be more likely to be produced with a creaky voice, especially at the end of prosodic constituents.
4
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Accommodation of L2 Speech in a Repetition Task: Exploring Paralinguistic Imitation

88%
Burin L.
Research in Language
|
2018
|
vol. 16
|
issue 4
377-406
EN
Phonetic convergence is the process by which a speaker adapts his/her speech to sound more similar to his/her interlocutor. While most studies analysing this process have been conducted amongst speakers sharing the same language or variety, this experiment focuses on imitation between non-native and native speakers in a repetition task. The data is a fragment from the ANGLISH corpus designed by Anne Tortel (Tortel, 2008). 40 French speakers (10 male intermediate, 10 male advanced, 10 female intermediate and 10 female advanced learners) were asked to repeat a set of 20 sentences produced by British native speakers. Segmental (vowel quality), suprasegmental (vowel duration) and voice quality were analysed. Level of proficiency, gender and model talker were taken as independent variables. Level appeared not to be a relevant parameter due to a high amount of inter-individual variability amongst groups. Somewhat contradictory results were observed for vowel duration and F1-F2 distance for male learners converged more than female learners. Our hypothesis that low vowels display a higher degree of imitation, and especially within the F1 dimension (Babel, 2012), was partially validated. Convergence in vowel duration in order to sound more native-like was also observed (Zając, 2013). Regarding the analysis of voice quality, and more particularly of creaky voice, observations suggest that some advanced female learners creaked more than the native speakers and more in the reading task, which indicate, both linguistic idiosyncrasy and accommodation towards the native speakers. Low vowels seem also to be more likely to be produced with a creaky voice, especially at the end of prosodic constituents.
5
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Sound symbolism in vowels: Vowel quality, duration and pitch in sound-to-size correspondence

88%
Rojczyk A.
Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
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2011
|
vol. 47
602
EN
The study investigates sound symbolism, concentrating on vowel quality, duration, and pitch in sound-to-size correspondences. Thirty-one native speakers of Polish were asked to rate presented stimuli on a 1–7 point scale ranging from “small” to “big”. The stimuli consisted of /CVC/ sequences, with all six non-nasalized Polish vowels, blocked in three groups. In the first group, vowel quality was investigated, with duration and pitch unaltered. In the second group, vowel was manipulated to increase its duration by 50% relative to a baseline condition. In the third group, F0 of a vowel was linearly downshifted by a scaling factor of 0.8. The results revealed that neither vowel quality nor lowered pitch significantly influenced size ratings. Vowel duration, however, yielded significantly different ratings compared to a baseline condition. Longer durational values yielded “bigger” measures relative to normal duration. This result is taken as evidence that vowel duration has a relatively more robust effect on perception of size in Polish compared to vowel quality and pitch.
6
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Categorizing Mandarin tones into listeners’ native prosodic categories: The role of phonetic properties

75%
So C. K., Best C. T.
Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
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2011
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vol. 47
133
EN
This study examined whether native speakers of non-tone languages (Australian English, and French) were able to perceive foreign Mandarin tones in a sentence environment according to their native prosodic categories. Results found that both English and French speakers were able to perceptually categorize foreign tones into their intonational categories (i-Categories), and that categorizations were based on the contextual phonetic similarities of the pitch contours they perceived between Mandarin tones and their native i-Categories. Results also showed that French speakers, but not English speakers, were able to detect the fine-detailed phonetic feature differences between Tone 3 and Tone 4 (low/falling tone vs. high-falling tone). The findings support a new extension of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM; Best 1995) to suprasegmental phonology (So and Best 2008): that non-native prosodic categories (e.g. lexical tones) will be assimilated to the categories of listeners’ native prosodic system (e.g. intonation). In addition, rhythmic differences among languages may also contribute to perception of non-native tones.
7
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Sociolinguistic Conditioning of Phonetic Category Realisation in Non-Native Speech

63%
Waniek-Klimczak E.
Research in Language
|
2009
|
vol. 7
149-166
EN
The realisation of phonetic categories reflects a complex relationship between individual phonetic parameters and both linguistic and extra-linguistic conditioning of language usage. The present paper investigates the effect of selected socio-linguistic variables, such as the age, the amount of language use and cultural/social distance in English used by Polish immigrants to the U.S. Individual parameters used in the realisation of the category ‘voice’ have been found to vary in their sensitivity to extra-linguistic factors: while the production of target-like values of all parameters is related to the age, it is the closure duration that is most stable in the correspondence to the age and level of language proficiency. The VOT and vowel duration, on the other hand, prove to be more sensitive to the amount of language use and attitudinal factors.
8
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

Sociolinguistic Conditioning of Phonetic Category Realisation in Non-Native Speech

63%
Waniek-Klimczak E.
Research in Language
|
2009
|
vol. 7
149-166
EN
The realisation of phonetic categories reflects a complex relationship between individual phonetic parameters and both linguistic and extra-linguistic conditioning of language usage. The present paper investigates the effect of selected socio-linguistic variables, such as the age, the amount of language use and cultural/social distance in English used by Polish immigrants to the U.S. Individual parameters used in the realisation of the category ‘voice’ have been found to vary in their sensitivity to extra-linguistic factors: while the production of target-like values of all parameters is related to the age, it is the closure duration that is most stable in the correspondence to the age and level of language proficiency. The VOT and vowel duration, on the other hand, prove to be more sensitive to the amount of language use and attitudinal factors.
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