Differences in phonetic-to-lexical perceptual mapping of L1 and L2 regional accents

Abstract

This study investigates how second language (L2) listeners match an unexpected accented form to their stored form of a word. The phonetic-to-lexical mapping for L2 as compared to L1 regional varieties was examined with early and late Italian-L2 speakers who were all L1-Australian English speakers. AXB discrimination and lexical decision tasks were conducted in both languages, using unfamiliar regional accents that minimize (near-merge) consonant contrasts maintained in their own L1-L2 accents. Results reveal that in the L2, early bilinguals’ recognition of accented variants depended on their discrimination capacity. Late bilinguals, for whom the accented variants were not represented in their L2 lexicon, instead mapped standard and accented exemplars to the same lexical representations (i.e., dual mapping: Samuel & Larraza, 2015). By comparison, both groups showed the same broad accommodation to L1 accented variants. Results suggest qualitatively different yet similarly effective phonetic-to-lexical mapping strategies both for L2 versus L1 regional accents.

Processing foreign-accented speech in a second language: Evidence from ERPs during sentence comprehension in bilinguals

“…The L1 listeners in that study showed a delayed N400 to foreign-accented speech, but they showed a classically-timed N400 for native speech. Linking the results of the current study with prior work suggests that a key factor for the time-course of semantic processing during accented speech comprehension may be familiarity with the accent, rather than nativeness versus foreignness per se (see also e.g., Larraza & Best, 2017; Porretta, Tremblay & Bolger, 2017; Van Heugten & Johnson, 2014 for recent work on lexical-level processing and accent familiarity). For example, Hanulíkova et al (2012) observed classically-timed N400s for both native- and foreign-accented semantic processing in L1 listeners who were highly familiar with the foreign accent.…”

To believe or not to believe? How voice and accent information in speech alter listener impressions of trust

“…In recent work, the extent to which English listeners considered Korean-accented speech to be foreign predicted activations in the right primary auditory cortex, similar regions to those that encode speech intelligibility (Yi et al, 2013; Yi et al, 2014). These data argue that familiarity towards an accent shapes early neural processing, affecting low-level spectro-temporal analysis of acoustic properties of the signal (Grey, Schubel, McQueen, & Van Hell, 2018; Larraza & Best, 2018; Porretta, Tremblay, & Bolger, 2017). We propose that the high familiarity of the out-group/foreign accent to our listeners was largely responsible for accent-induced changes in the N100, despite the fact that listeners ultimately rated these speakers as less intelligible.…”

Can L2 Learners of English Comprehend Regional Varieties?

“…This implies that the same processes are used for both accented and non-accented speech and the extent of accent-related processing effects simply reflect the accents' distance from the native language or accent. Other research has reached similar conclusions observing that when the listener hears speech which is considerably different from their own category prototypes, the listener must work harder to decode the message and it may take longer (Evans and Iverson, 2004;Larraza & Best, 2018). Cutler (2000) suggests that using intensive listening training to decrease the influence of the L1 on L2 processing is beneficial to L2 learners.…”