Production and perception of a novel, second-language phonetic contrast

Abstract

Four experiments, all of which focused on vowel duration, assessed Chinese subjects' production and perception of the contrast between /t/ and /d/ in the final position of English words. Vowel duration was measured in minimal pairs in the first experiment. The stimuli in natural-edited beat-bead and bat-bad continua in which vowel duration varied in 20-ms steps were then presented to native English and Chinese subjects in a forced-choice test, in an experiment using the method of adjustment, and in an imitation task. The non-natives who learned English in childhood closely resembled native speakers in all four experiments. Three groups of non-natives who had learned English as a second language in adulthood, on the other hand, differed from the native speakers. The late learners produced significantly longer vowels in words ending in /d/ than /t/. However, the late learners' vowel duration differences were much smaller than the native speakers', and were correlated significantly with degree of foreign accent in English. The late learners differed from the native speakers in several ways in the two perception experiments, and also in the imitation task. The pattern of significant and nonsignificant between-group differences, but not data for individual subjects, was consistent with the hypothesis that L2 (second language) production accuracy is limited by the adequacy of perceptual representations for sounds in the L2.

A limit on behavioral plasticity in speech perception

“…In particular, it remains debated whether production loses flexibility before perception (Goto, 1971;Yeni-Komshian et al, 1973;Sheldon and Strange, 1982). The most recent data are consistent with the hypothesis that non-natives resemble native speakers more closely in perceiving than in producing some sounds (Flege, 1993). Moreover, to our knowledge, no previous published study has assessed the perceptual abilities of subjects who acquired their second language before the age of 6 years.…”

Speech sound acquisition, coarticulation, and rate effects in a neural network model of speech production.

“…However, some studies suggest a more complicated relationship between perception and production in second language learners. For example, although grouped data in the experiments of Flege (1993) were in accordance with the hypothesis that proper perception precedes proper production in second language learners, the data for individual participants did not support this hypothesis: As many participants showed large production effects of the second language in the absence of large perception effects as showed large perception effects without production effects.…”

“…Relatedly, Flege and Eefting (1988) and Flege (1991Flege ( , 1993 have argued that learners of a second language must establish appropriate phonetic categories before they can reliably January 31, 1995 1.1 produce the correct phonemes in the second language. The present model's assumption that the perceptual category for a sonnd exists before the orosensory target for that sound is learned is consistent with this hypothesis.…”

The Early Phase of /ɹ/ Production Development in Adult Japanese Learners of English

“…An important concern in L2 production studies is the fact that that different elicitation procedures can yield different outcomes. Although speech perception generally entails highly automatic processing, production can occur with varying levels of attention to meaning and form (see Flege, 1993Flege, , p. 1605. As part of his Ontogeny Phylogeny Model, Major (2001) proposed that as L2 phonological learning progresses, L1 influences slowly become less strong in more formal speech production.…”