Category restructuring during second-language speech acquisition

Flege, James Emil; Piske, Thorsten; Schirru, Carlo

doi:10.1121/1.1377287

Cited by 112 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In this case a 28 more strict use of terms would define the groups as bilingual vs. L2 learners respectively, although even some of the learners in the 'early' group might be considered L2 speakers rather than bilingual. Then again, in Mackay et al (2001b) and in Meador et al (2000) the (presumably same) sample of subjects were divided into 3 age of learning groups with the cut-off points at ages 7, 14 and 19, in which case the two older groups are best considered L2 speakers. Jones et al (2007) also use an age around puberty (AOA=15) as a defining criterion for their late-learners.…”

Section: Listener Typementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review

Lecumberri¹,

Cooke²,

Cutler³

2010

Speech Communication

242

185

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

If listening in adverse conditions is hard, then listening in a foreign language is doubly so: non-native listeners have to cope with both imperfect signals and imperfect knowledge. Comparison of native and non-native listener performance in speech-in-noise tasks helps to clarify the role of prior linguistic experience in speech perception, and, more directly, contributes to an understanding of the problems faced by language learners in everyday listening situations. This article reviews experimental studies on nonnative listening in adverse conditions, organised around three principal contributory factors: the task facing listeners, the effect of adverse conditions on speech, and the differences among listener populations. Based on a comprehensive tabulation of key studies, we identify robust findings, research trends and gaps in current knowledge. 3 IntroductionFor many of us, the first non-native language experience outside the classroom is a shock. Not only are the answers to the carefully-practised stock phrases not those that appeared in the textbook, but the raw acoustic material reaching our ears lacks the clarity of the speakers in the quiet language laboratory. Thus unprepared, we enter the real world of the non-native listener, characterised by the dual challenges of imperfect signal and imperfect knowledge. And the problem persists even as we gain experience, exposure and confidence in the non-native language. Use of the telephone seems harder than it should be.Conversations in restaurants and bars are difficult to follow and join. The television never seems quite loud enough. We continue to prefer hearing non-native speakers of English at international conferences rather than highly-fluent natives. We finally take solace in the fact that even "true" bilingual listeners never quite reach the ability of monolinguals in the presence of noise (Mayo et al., 1997;Rogers et al., 2006).Knowing about the extent of problems faced by non-native listeners in adverse conditions is important in developing theories of general speech perception. Comparing adult, normal-hearing populations who differ only in their native-language experience has the potential to provide insights into the role of linguistic factors in speech decoding. Since all listeners routinely handle acoustically-complex scenarios containing competing sound sources, reverberant energy and other forms of distortion, the use of native and non-native populations allows us to explore the extent to which linguistic knowledge is used in tasks such as sound source separation and identification. To give an example, consider the processes used by listeners to handle variability in formant frequencies due to factors such as differences in vocal tract sizes. Can vocal tract length normalisation be performed purely on the basis of the speech signal itself, or does it depend on the identification of units such as vowels in the speech stream, thereby engaging higher level representations which differentiate between native and non-native listeners? More ...

show abstract

Section: Listener Typementioning

confidence: 99%

“…• Some of the errors found in speech in noise tasks are due to the influence of the L1 sound system (Mackay et al 2001b;García Lecumberri and Cooke, 2006), and the relative degree of activation of the L1 correlates with the strength of its influence (Meador et al, 2000;Mackay et al 2001a,b).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review

Lecumberri¹,

Cooke²,

Cutler³

2010

Speech Communication

242

185

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Best 1995, Best and Tyler 2007, Best et al 2001, Flege 1995 L2 sounds. This effect of L1 on L2 appears to be especially strong for late learners of L2 (Caramazza et al 1973, Flege et al 2003, Guion 2003, Hazan and Boulakia 1993, MacKay et al 2001, MacLeod et al 2009, Piske et al 2002.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forming New Vowel Categories in Second Language Speech: The Case of Polish Learners' Production of English /I/ and /e/

Rojczyk

2010

RiL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper concentrates on formation of L2 English vowel categories in the speech of Polish learners. More specifically, it compares distribution of two English categories -/ɪ/ and /e/ relative to neighbouring Polish vowels. 43 participants recorded Polish and English vowels in a /bVt/ context. First two formants were measured at a vowel midpoint and plotted on a vowel plane. The results reveal that while a separate /ɪ/ category is formed fairly effectively in Polish learners pronunciation of English, a category of /e/ is almost completely subsumed by a Polish vowel //

show abstract

“…Adult second language (L2) learners are known to experience difficulties in learning to perceive and produce the sounds of an L2 (see Flege, 1987Flege, , 1995Flege, , 1999Best, 1995;Best et al, 2001;MacKay et al, 2001). The majority of adult L2 learners never acquire a native-like pronunciation and many of them retain a distinct foreign accent (Long, 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic pronunciation error detection in non-native speech: The case of vowel errors in Dutch

Doremalen

Cucchiarini

Strik

2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research is aimed at analyzing and improving automatic pronunciation error detection in a second language. Dutch vowels spoken by adult non-native learners of Dutch are used as a test case. A first study on Dutch pronunciation by L2 learners with different L1s revealed that vowel pronunciation errors are relatively frequent and often concern subtle acoustic differences between the realization and the target sound. In a second study automatic pronunciation error detection experiments were conducted to compare existing measures to a metric that takes account of the error patterns observed to capture relevant acoustic differences. The results of the two studies do indeed show that error patterns bear information that can be usefully employed in weighted automatic measures of pronunciation quality. In addition, it appears that combining such a weighted metric with existing measures improves the equal error rate by 6.1 percentage points from 0.297, for the Goodness of Pronunciation (GOP) algorithm, to 0.236. V

show abstract

Category restructuring during second-language speech acquisition

Cited by 112 publications

References 41 publications

Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review

Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review

Forming New Vowel Categories in Second Language Speech: The Case of Polish Learners' Production of English /I/ and /e/

Automatic pronunciation error detection in non-native speech: The case of vowel errors in Dutch

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About