Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers

Abstract

Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner’s first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development.

Investigating Orthographic Versus Auditory Cross‐Situational Word Learning With Online and Laboratory‐Based Testing

“…However, in specific circumstances, IDS may inhibit rather than facilitate learning. For example, we found that IDS negatively impacted CSWL of English words in L2 learners with a native tonal language background (Escudero et al., 2022). We have suggested that the pitch variations inherent in IDS may lead a speaker of a tonal language such as Mandarin or Thai to perceive one phonological contrast as multiple contrasts, which impacts their performance in the CSWL task.…”

“…In recent studies, however, minimal pairs have been included to test statistical word learning of word pairs with phonological overlap, where words differ only in their vowels (e.g., DIT-DEET) or their consonants (e.g., BON-TON). The use of minimal and nonminimal pairs in CSWL tasks has been helpful in testing whether performance in CSWL tasks is affected by the phonological contrast in the words as proposed by the Second Language Linguistic Perception model (Escudero, 2005;Escudero et al, 2022;van Leussen & Escudero, 2015). For example, Escudero et al (2016a) found that adults were able to track word-object co-occurrences across trials, thereby learning nonminimal pairs as well as vowel and consonant minimal pairs, but that performance was lowest for vowel minimal pairs.…”

Understanding preschoolers’ word learning success in different scenarios: disambiguation meets statistical learning and eBook reading

“…Noisy child data are a typical example of complex data sets, with small or unbalanced samples, which yield low statistical power using conventional statistics ( Van de Schoot et al, 2017 , 2021 ; Escudero et al, 2020 ). A similar Bayesian approach has been used in many recent papers to handle complex data sets (e.g., Smit et al, 2019 , 2022 ; Escudero et al, 2020 , 2022a , 2022b ; Milne and Herff, 2020 ).…”

Spectral and temporal implementation of Japanese speakers’ English vowel categories: A corpus-based study

“…Although current L2 models primarily focus on segmental categories, prosodic factors are also necessary to fully account for L2 speech acquisition. There have been a few attempts to expand the models' predictions to prosodic factors such as lexical tone (Chen, Best, & Antoniou, 2020;Escudero, Smit, & Mulak, 2022;Hao, 2014), which should be further pursued. The application of the ToBI framework to L2 speech, though having a long way to go, can also open up new avenues for future research.…”