Child—Adult Differences in Second-Language Phonological Learning: The Role of Cross-Language Similarity

Baker, Wendy; Trofimovich, Pavel; Flege, James Emil; Mack, Molly; Halter, Randall H.

doi:10.1177/0023830908099068

Cited by 95 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(110 reference statements)

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“…For phonetic learning specifically, there is some naturalistic support for a benefit of age in L2 speech sound discrimination coming from longitudinal studies comparing child and adult L2 learners in immersion situations. These studies show better L2 speech sound discrimination in children compared to adults (Aoyama et al, 2004; Tsukada et al, 2005), although studies comparing adults and children after periods of immersion less than one year, do not always find clear perception advantages for children (e.g., Baker et al, 2008; Snow & Hoefnagel-Höhle, 1978). However, a limitation to these naturalistic studies is that, while they control for length of residence in the L2-speaking country, the actual input received by the learners was not controlled.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

High or low? Comparing high and low-variability phonetic training in adult and child second language learners

Giannakopoulou

Brown

Clayards

et al. 2017

PeerJ

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BackgroundHigh talker variability (i.e., multiple voices in the input) has been found effective in training nonnative phonetic contrasts in adults. A small number of studies suggest that children also benefit from high-variability phonetic training with some evidence that they show greater learning (more plasticity) than adults given matched input, although results are mixed. However, no study has directly compared the effectiveness of high versus low talker variability in children.MethodsNative Greek-speaking eight-year-olds (N = 52), and adults (N = 41) were exposed to the English /i/-/ɪ/ contrast in 10 training sessions through a computerized word-learning game. Pre- and post-training tests examined discrimination of the contrast as well as lexical learning. Participants were randomly assigned to high (four talkers) or low (one talker) variability training conditions.ResultsBoth age groups improved during training, and both improved more while trained with a single talker. Results of a three-interval oddity discrimination test did not show the predicted benefit of high-variability training in either age group. Instead, children showed an effect in the reverse direction—i.e., reliably greater improvements in discrimination following single talker training, even for untrained generalization items, although the result is qualified by (accidental) differences between participant groups at pre-test. Adults showed a numeric advantage for high-variability but were inconsistent with respect to voice and word novelty. In addition, no effect of variability was found for lexical learning. There was no evidence of greater plasticity for phonetic learning in child learners.DiscussionThis paper adds to the handful of studies demonstrating that, like adults, child learners can improve their discrimination of a phonetic contrast via computerized training. There was no evidence of a benefit of training with multiple talkers, either for discrimination or word learning. The results also do not support the findings of greater plasticity in child learners found in a previous paper (Giannakopoulou, Uther & Ylinen, 2013a). We discuss these results in terms of various differences between training and test tasks used in the current work compared with previous literature.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

High or low? Comparing high and low-variability phonetic training in adult and child second language learners

Giannakopoulou

Brown

Clayards

et al. 2017

PeerJ

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“…proficiency after a larger amount of L2 practice (Baker, Trofimovich, Flege, Mack, & Halter, 2008;Yeni-Komshian, Flege, & Liu, 2000), but also that the intensive and constant use of the L2 alters their L1 performance (e.g., Bialystok & Miller, 1999;Hopp & Schmid, 2013). Another crucial variable is the age-related decline in many human cognitive functions, such as working memory, executive control, speech sound processing, or inhibition of task-irrelevant information (Hakuta et al, 2003).…”

Section: Cognitive Aging Hypothesis (Cah)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Age of Acquisition in Late Second Language Oral Proficiency Attainment

Saito

2015

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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The current project examined whether and to what degree age of acquisition (AOA), defined as the first intensive exposure to a second language (L2) environment, can be predictive of the end state of post-pubertal L2 oral proficiency attainment. Data were collected from 88 experienced Japanese learners of English and two groups of 20 baseline speakers (inexperienced Japanese speakers and native English speakers). The global quality of their spontaneous speech production was first judged by 10 native speaking raters of English based on accentedness (linguistic nativelikeness) and comprehensibility (ease of understanding), and then submitted to segmental, prosodic, temporal, lexical, and grammatical analyses. According to the results, AOA was negatively correlated with the accentedness and comprehensibility components of L2 speech production, owing to relatively strong age effects on segmental and prosodic attainment. Yet, significant age effects were not observed in the case of fluency and lexicogrammar attainment.The results in turn suggest that AOA plays a key role in determining the extent to which learners can attain advanced-level L2 oral abilities via improving the phonological domain of language (correct consonant and vowel pronunciation, adequate and varied prosody); and that the temporal and lexicogrammatical domains of language (optimal speech rate, the proper vocabulary and grammar usage) may be enhanced with increased L2 experience, regardless of age. Whereas late second language (L2) learners tend to demonstrate a great amount of improvement in relation to increased L2 experience, especially around the early phase of second language acquisition (SLA) processes (i.e., rate of learning), many researchers have extensively examined the extent to which they can continue to enhance learners' oral ability (i.e., ultimate attainment) in a way that could lead to near nativelike proficiency. On the one hand, few bilinguals demonstrate perfect proficiency in all aspects of language like monolinguals do (Abrahamsson & Hyltenstam, 2009;Flege, Yeni-Komshian, & Liu, 1999). On the other hand, some learners are able to attain high-level L2 performance, and the incidence of successful SLA is influenced by several factors, such as the linguistic distance between first language (L1) and L2 structures

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“…These researchers also found that Japanese speakers perceive English /r/ (which is less similar to Japanese / /) more accurately than English /l/, which suggests that this (dis)similarity influences the learning of the English /r-l/ contrast. For many years, researchers have attempted to understand whether typological differences (Eckman, 1991), acoustic distance (Baker & Trofimovich, 2005), perceptual (Baker, Trofimovich, Flege, Mack, & Halter, 2008), or auditory (Aoyama et al, 2004) features affect L1 -L2 similarity. This research has revealed that the L1-L2 relationship is more complex than simple acoustic or auditory comparisons would suggest.…”

Section: Cross-language Similaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research has revealed that the L1-L2 relationship is more complex than simple acoustic or auditory comparisons would suggest. Indeed, it is unclear whether and how well acoustic, auditory, and perceptual features predict how learners will perceive the L1 -L2 sound similarity (Baker et al, 2008;Strange, Bohn, Nishi, & Trent, 2005).…”

Section: Cross-language Similaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of L2 Dialect on Learning French Vowels: Native English Speakers Learning Québécois and European French

Baker¹,

Smith²

2010

The Canadian Modern Language Review

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This article examines how a second language (L2) dialect affects how accurately the L2 is perceived and produced. Specifically, the study examined differences between the production and perception of French vowels /i/, /y/, and /u/ by learners of either Québec French (QF) or European French (EF). These vowels differ across the two varieties, both acoustically and because of assibilation of /t-d/ before /i-y/ for QF versus EF. As a result of these differences, QF has an additional acoustic cue with which to contrast /u/ and /i-y/. Anglophone learners of QF or EF were asked to identify and discriminate both QF and EF vowels and to produce the vowels in several phonetic contexts. Results indicate that QF learners were more accurate at discrimination and identification of these vowels as produced by both QF and EF speakers and that L2 dialect exposure affects how well learners perceive and produce these French vowels.Résumé : Le présent article examine l'influence de la locution d'une langue seconde (L2) sur la façon dont elle est perçue et produite. Plus précisément, l'étude porte sur les différences entre la production et la perception des voyelles françaises (/i/, /y/, et /u/) par les apprenants du français québécois (FQ) ou du français européen (FE). Ces voyelles sont différentes les unes des autres, tant phonétiquement qu'en raison de l'assibilation de /t/ ou de /d/ avant /i/ ou /y/ pour le français québécois par rapport au français européen. É tant donné ces différences, le FQ a une marque acoustique supplémentaire qui permet de faire contraster /u/ et /i/, et /y/. Nous avons demandé aux apprenants anglophones du FQ ou du FE d'identifier des voyelles tant FQ que FE et d'en faire la différence, et de produire ces voyelles dans plusieurs contextes phonétiques. Les résultats indiquent que les apprenants en FQ pouvaient plus précisément faire la différence entre ces voyelles et les identifier telles qu'elles étaient prononcées par les apprenants en FQ et en # 2010 The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 66, 5 (August/aoû t), 711 -738

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Child—Adult Differences in Second-Language Phonological Learning: The Role of Cross-Language Similarity

Cited by 95 publications

References 65 publications

High or low? Comparing high and low-variability phonetic training in adult and child second language learners

High or low? Comparing high and low-variability phonetic training in adult and child second language learners

The Role of Age of Acquisition in Late Second Language Oral Proficiency Attainment

The Impact of L2 Dialect on Learning French Vowels: Native English Speakers Learning Québécois and European French

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