Speeded discrimination of American vowels by experienced Russian learners of English

Abstract

This study is part of a project examining how L2 learners whose native languages have small vowel inventories (Japanese, Russian, Spanish) perceive American English (AE) vowels. Experienced Russian (RU) L2 learners’ discrimination was evaluated in a speeded ABX task that included nil Experimental contrasts among adjacent height pairs and front/back pairs; four nonadjacent height pairs served as Controls. An earlier study of Japanese L2 learners indicated that AE contrasts with spectrum and duration differences (S+D) [i:/■, æ:/[g\/], u:/■, ■:/■] were discriminated more rapidly, relative to Control contrasts [i:/[g\/], ■/æ, u:/■, ■/■:], than were contrasts that differed only in spectral structure (S-Only) [■/[g\/], ■/■, [g\/]/■, æ:/■:]. Since vowel duration is not contrastive in Russian, it was hypothesized that discrimination of S-Only and S+D contrasts might be equally slow, relative to Controls, if RU listeners did not attend to duration differences. Preliminary findings confirm that reaction time (RT) difference scores (relative to Controls) were not different for S-Only and S+D contrasts. Relative RTs on both contrast types were slower than for AE listeners, whose RTs were about the same for S-Only and S+D pairs. These findings suggest that speeded discrimination is a sensitive measure of continuing perceptual difficulties of L2 learners. [Work supported by NSF.]

Perceptual assimilation of American English vowels by inexperienced Russian listeners

“…First, a classification matrix of Russian vowels based on F1/F2/F3 Bark values at the 50% point of the vocalic portion was established (training set). These data were obtained from previous research (Gilichinskaya et al, 2007) and included 4 tokens of each of 6 RU (single) vowels produced in citation /Vb./ disyllables by three male native Russian speakers who had lived in U.S. less than one year at the time of recording [ Fig. 1(a)].…”

“…These results are further supported by our perceptual assimilation data from Russian immigrants in the United States who, while assumingly having had more experience with English, assimilated AE vowels to Russian vowel categories in the same manner. These data were partially presented at the 154th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans (Gilichinskaya et al, 2007).…”

“…Research is underway that examines the extent to which perceptual assimilation patterns of AE vowels by Russian-speaking late L2 learners of English change from the patterns shown here, and how perceptual assimilation patterns predict relative difficulty in a speeded categorial discrimination task (Gilichinskaya et al, 2007).…”

“…The purpose of this study was to establish perceived similarity patterns of AE vowels to native categories by Russian listeners with very little experience with spoken English in order to provide a reference point for comparing perceptual patterns of Russian L2 English learners as they acquire L2 experience (Gilichinskaya et al, 2007). Perceptual assimilation patterns from 16 nearly monolingual Russian listeners were assessed using 8 AE vowels [ib, (, ε, aeb, Äb, #, *, ub].…”