A longitudinal study of the second language acquisition of a three-way stop contrast

Abstract The goal of this paper was to document how native (L1) speakers of a language with a two-way stop contrast acquire a three-way stop contrast in a second language (L2). Mandarin presents a two-way stop contrast cued primarily by VOT, whereas Korean presents a three-way stop contrast cued jointly by VOT and the f0 of the following vowel. Mandarin and Korean stop productions from 12 L1 Mandarin novice L2 learners of Korean were subjected to acoustic analysis. Results revealed a wide variety of production patterns, suggesting that the learning of an L2 contrast may not always be predicted by cross-language acoustic correspondences. Six of the participants were recorded again both six and 12 months later. The longitudinal results showed that some learners were unable to produce the Korean contrast in a native-like way even after one year of intensive L2 instruction. Learners whose initial production strategy was consistent but incorrect fared worse after one year than learners whose productions initially exhibited more variability. These results contribute to our understanding of both the L2 acquisition of “new” and “similar” categories and also how well naive perceptual assimilation can predict L2 production.

[1]  S. G. Guion,et al.  Clear speech production of Korean stops: changing phonetic targets and enhancement strategies. , 2008, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[2]  Paola Escudero,et al.  The Effect of L1 Orthography on Non-native Vowel Perception , 2010, Language and speech.

[3]  Evelyn P. Altenberg,et al.  Fundamental frequency in monolingual English, bilingual English/Russian, and bilingual English/Cantonese young adult women. , 2006, Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation.

[4]  Sungmi. Kwon,et al.  A Study on the Phonetic Discrimination and Acquisition Ability of Korean Language Learners , 2010 .

[5]  J E Flege,et al.  Imitation of a VOT continuum by native speakers of English and Spanish: evidence for phonetic category formation. , 1988, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[6]  Catherine T. Best,et al.  Vocabulary size matters: The assimilation of second-language Australian English vowels to first-language Japanese vowel categories , 2011 .

[7]  Charles B. Chang.  The Implementation of Laryngeal Contrast in Korean as a Second Language , 2009 .

[8]  Paul Boersma,et al.  Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer , 2002 .

[9]  Eunjong Kong,et al.  Dialectal Variation in the Acoustic Correlates of Korean Stops , 2011, ICPhS.

[10]  James Emil Flege,et al.  Cross-language switching in stop consonant perception and production by Dutch speakers of english , 1987, Speech Commun..

[11]  Yue Wang,et al.  The Effects of Linguistic Experience on Perceptual Assimilation of Lexical Tone , 2011, ICPhS.

[12]  E. Zurif,et al.  The acquisition of a new phonological contrast: the case of stop consonants in French-English bilinguals. , 1973, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[13]  Tsuneo Yamada,et al.  A one-year longitudinal study of English and Japanese vowel production by Japanese adults and children in an English-speaking setting , 2011, J. Phonetics.

[14]  Pierre A. Hallé,et al.  Identification and discrimination of Mandarin Chinese tones by Mandarin Chinese vs. French listeners , 2004, J. Phonetics.

[15]  R. Kagaya.  A fiberscopic and acoustic study of the Korean stops, affricates and fricatives , 1974 .

[16]  Allard Jongman,et al.  Incomplete neutralization and other sub-phonemic durational differences in production and perception: evidence from Dutch , 2004, J. Phonetics.

[17]  Paola Escudero,et al.  Explaining Individual Variation in L2 Perception: Rounded Vowels in English Learners of German. , 2010 .

[18]  M. Fourakis,et al.  On the ‘Incomplete Neutralization’ of German Final Obstruents , 1984 .

[19]  C. Best,et al.  Nonnative and second-language speech perception : commonalities and complementarities , 2007 .

[20]  Paola Escudero,et al.  Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access , 2008, J. Phonetics.

[21]  D. Dinnsen,et al.  On the relationship between phonology and learning. , 1984, ASHA monographs.

[22]  Alexander L. Francis,et al.  Selective attention and the acquisition of new phonetic categories. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[23]  Paul Boersma,et al.  Praat: doing phonetics by computer , 2003 .

[24]  Kenneth Hyltenstam,et al.  EFFECTS OF AGE AND SPEAKING RATE ON VOICE ONSET TIME , 2014, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[25]  Jeffrey J. Holliday.  The perceptual assimilation of Korean obstruents by native Mandarin listeners. , 2014, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[26]  Tsuneo Yamada,et al.  The first years in an L2-speaking environment: A comparison of Japanese children and adults learning American English , 2008 .

[27]  Ratree Wayland,et al.  Training English and Chinese Listeners to Perceive Thai Tones: A Preliminary Report , 2004 .

[28]  A. M. Schmidt.  Cross-language consonant identification: English and Korean , 2007 .

[29]  Yoonjung Kang,et al.  Voice Onset Time merger and development of tonal contrast in Seoul Korean stops: A corpus study , 2014, J. Phonetics.

[30]  Fangfang Li,et al.  Contrast and covert contrast: The phonetic development of voiceless sibilant fricatives in English and Japanese toddlers , 2009, J. Phonetics.

[31]  J. H. Saxman,et al.  Acoustic validation of phonological knowledge and its relationship to treatment. , 1990, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[32]  David J. Ostry,et al.  Cross language phonetic influences on the speech of French-English bilinguals , 2008, J. Phonetics.

[33]  D. Dinnsen,et al.  Impact of substitution patterns on phonological learning by misarticulating children , 1997 .

[34]  C. Best.  A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception , 1995 .

[35]  Robert J. Hartsuiker,et al.  Is a FAN Always FUN? Phonological and Orthographic Effects in Bilingual Visual Word Recognition , 2010, Language and speech.

[36]  David Birdsong,et al.  Release Bursts in English Word-Final Voiceless Stops Produced by Native English and Korean Adults and Children , 2004, Phonetica.

[37]  J. Flege.  Age of learning affects the authenticity of voice-onset time (VOT) in stop consonants produced in a second language. , 1991, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[38]  Erika S. Levy.  On the assimilation-discrimination relationship in American English adults' French vowel learning. , 2009, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[39]  David Silva,et al.  Acoustic evidence for the emergence of tonal contrast in contemporary Korean , 2006, Phonology.

[40]  J. Flege.  Second Language Speech Learning Theory , Findings , and Problems , 2006 .

[41]  Judith A. Gierut,et al.  On Word-Initial Voicing: Converging Sources of Evidence in Phonologically Disordered Speech , 1986, Language and speech.

[42]  Kimberly M. Fenn,et al.  Perceptual learning of Cantonese lexical tones by tone and non-tone language speakers , 2008, J. Phonetics.

[43]  M. Ng,et al.  Differences in vocal characteristics between Cantonese and English produced by proficient Cantonese-English bilingual speakers--a long-term average spectral analysis. , 2012, Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation.

[44]  Catherine T Best,et al.  Perception of non-native tonal contrasts : effects of native phonological and phonetic influences , 2006 .

[45]  Jennifer A. Alexander,et al.  Music melody perception in tone‐language‐ and nontone‐language speakers. , 2008 .

[46]  V. Hazan,et al.  Perception and Production of a Voicing Contrast by French-English Bilinguals , 1993 .

[47]  L. Lisker,et al.  A Cross-Language Study of Voicing in Initial Stops: Acoustical Measurements , 1964 .

[48]  A A Tyler,et al.  Relationships between acoustically determined knowledge of stop place and voicing contrasts and phonological treatment progress. , 1993, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[49]  Wendy Baker-Smemoe,et al.  An investigation of the production of ejectives by native (L1) and second (L2) language speakers of Q'eqchi' Mayan , 2013, J. Phonetics.

[50]  S. G. Guion,et al.  Phonological systems in bilinguals: age of learning effects on the stop consonant systems of Korean-English bilinguals. , 2005, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[51]  C. Fowler,et al.  Gestural drift in a bilingual speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and English , 1997 .

[52]  P. Iverson,et al.  English /r/-/l/ category assimilation by Japanese adults: individual differences and the link to identification accuracy. , 2009, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[53]  Minhwa Chung,et al.  A corpus-based analysis of English segments produced by Korean learners , 2014, J. Phonetics.

[54]  Mark S. Seidenberg,et al.  Orthographic and phonological activation in auditory and visual word recognition , 1980, Memory & cognition.

[55]  Marlys A. Macken,et al.  The acquisition of the voicing contrast in English: a study of voice onset time in word-initial stop consonants , 1980, Journal of Child Language.

[56]  Mieko S. Han,et al.  Acoustic Features of Korean /P, T, K/, /p, t, k/ and /ph, th, kh/ , 1970 .