Orthographic forms affect speech perception in a second language: Consonant and vowel length in L2 English.

Abstract

ItalianL1 speakers of EnglishL2 produce the same English sound as longer if spelled with two than with one letter, following Italian grapheme-phoneme conversion rules. Do Italian listeners perceive short and long sounds in English homophonic word pairs that are spelled with a single letter or a digraph (finish-Finnish; morning-mourning)? In Experiment 1, 50 ItalianL1-EnglishL2 bilinguals and 50 English controls performed a Consonant Perception Task and a Vowel Perception Task. They heard English homophonic word pairs containing a target sound spelled with one or two letters and indicated whether the two words contained the same sounds or not. For half of the listeners a picture was used to activate target words (Auditory-Visual Input group). Bilinguals in this group perceived different sounds in homophonic pairs. Experiment 2

The efficacy of grapheme-phoneme correspondence instruction in reducing the effect of orthographic forms on second language phonology

“…Such results confirm and extend previous findings that orthography-induced consonant gemination in Italian L1 speakers of English L2 is persistent. Previous studies found that it is not eliminated by extensive exposure in a target-language environment (Bassetti et al, 2018;Bassetti et al, 2020;Bassetti et al, 2021), although the same exposure can reduce other non-native like timing aspects of L2 speech production that are not reinforced by orthography (Mairano et al, 2018). Furthermore, the metalinguistic awareness task results extend such findingsthat orthographic effects on L2 phonology are persistent-from speech production to metalinguistic awareness.…”

“…We decided to implement an intervention addressing the GPCs of English consonant and vowel digraphs because exposure to English native speech by itself does not eliminate orthographic effects on L2 phonology and because explicit phonetic instruction can impact L2 speech production. Lengthy naturalistic exposure does not appear to reduce the effects of number of letters (single or digraphs) on second language phonology in Italian L1 speakers of English L2 (Bassetti et al, 2018;Bassetti et al, 2020;Bassetti et al, 2021). Researchers also found that sequential bilinguals with lengthy naturalistic exposure produced more native-like voice onset times than instructed learners, but did not produce fewer long consonants (Mairano et al, 2018), and argued that the effects of orthography on timing in L2 speech production may be more impervious to change than effects of L1 phonology that are not reinforced by orthographic representation.…”

“…In metalinguistic awareness tasks, Italian L1 speakers judge the same consonant as two different consonants when spelled with double letters or a single letter, and generally believe that English has long and short consonants (Bassetti et al, 2020). Orthographic forms even appear to affect speech perception, as Italians perceive different consonants in English homophones such as finish and Finnish, but only when the two target words are preactivated, for instance by images of a finish-line flag and a Finnish flag (Bassetti et al, 2021). Overall, it appears that Italian L1 speakers of English L2 make a contrast between English long and short consonants-a contrast that is not attested in the phonological system of the English language and that affects their L2 perception, production, and awareness.…”

“…Single vowels as well as the <V_e> digraph (known as "silent e") can also represent tense (that is to say, longer) vowels, as in ski (/skiː/) and June (/dʒuːn/). Italian L1 speakers of English L2 often produce a vowel as longer in words spelled with a vowel digraph than in words spelled with a single vowel or a <V_e> digraph, for instance producing the target vowel [uː] as longer in moon and shorter in June (Bassetti & Atkinson, 2015;Bassetti et al, 2020) and categorise and perceive different vowels in homophonous words spelled with a digraph, versus with a single letter or <V_e> digraph (Bassetti et al, 2020;Bassetti et al, 2021. Italians are not aware that <V_e> is a split digraph that indicates a long vowel, Bassetti & Atkinson, 2015).…”

“…Lengthy naturalistic exposure does not appear to reduce such orthographic effects on L2 phonology. A few studies compared the perception, production, and awareness of English L2 consonant and vowel length in Italian instructed learners of English L2, with no or minimal exposure to a native-speaking environment, with that of Italian L1 -English L2 sequential bilinguals who had studied English at school and then had been living in an English-speaking environment for a long time (Bassetti et al, 2020;Bassetti et al, 2021;Bassetti et al, 2018;Mairano et al, 2018). Results consistently showed that lengthy naturalistic exposure does not reduce orthographic effects on L2 phonology.…”