The role of L2 experience in L1 and L2 perception and production of voiceless stops by English learners of Spanish

The acquisition of L2 voiced stops by English learners of Spanish and Spanish learners of English

“…Flege (1987) also found that two groups of American learners of French in an L1 setting produced significantly longer VOT values for French /t/ than French monolinguals, whereas the Americans living in an immersion setting did not, illustrating a positive effect of residence in an L2 setting on L2 production. In a study that examined the production of voiceless stops by the same group of L1-English speakers as in the current study, Gorba and Cebrian (2021) found that English learners of Spanish with experience living in the L2 setting outperformed those with no experience in an L2 setting in their production of Spanish /p/ and /k/, indicating a positive effect of L2 experience on L2 accuracy. The same result was replicated by Spanish learners of English (Gorba, 2020).…”

“…However, contrary to Flege (1987), no influence of the L2 on the L1 was found regardless of the amount of L2 experience. The different outcome regarding the effect of the L2 on the L1 in the studies reported above could be explained by the fact that the length of residence of the most experienced group in Gorba and Cebrian (2021) and Gorba (2020) was considerably shorter than that of the group tested in Flege (1987) about 4 years vs. 12, respectively -, as well as other factors, including a limited use of the L2 -even in the L2 settingand amount of L2 instruction.…”

“…The acquisition of stops has received considerable attention in the literature, especially when it comes to voiceless stops (e.g., Caramazza et al 1973;Casillas 2019;Flege 1990;Fowler et al 2008;Harada 2003;Hazan and Boulakia 1993;Major 1992;Schuhmann and Huffman 2015;Williams 1977;Zampini 1998). The results generally suggest that L2 production of voiceless stops evolves towards more target-like values with increased L2 experience (e.g., Flege 1987;Gorba and Cebrian 2021;Major 1992;Schuchmann and Huffman 2019;Stevens 2001;Yang et al 2022), and that the L1 category may also experience changes in the direction of the L2, particularly given sufficient L2 input and use (e.g., Flege 1987;Major 1992;Sancier and Fowler 1997;Herd et al 2015). For instance, Flege (1987) examined the production of L1 and L2 /t/ by French learners of Englishas well as L1-English learners of Frenchdiffering in setting and length of residence and found evidence of bidirectional influence: French learners of English living in the US produced /t/ in both languages with VOT values that differed from monolingual speakers' values and were intermediate to the values expected for each language.…”

“…The extent and direction of crosslinguistic influence may in fact be modulated by a number of factors, including, for instance, starting age of learning, L1 and L2 use, formal instruction and motivation (Piske et al, 2001). A wide range of studies have investigated the effect of length of residence in an L2 setting (e.g., Bohn and Flege 1990;Flege 1987;Flege et al, 1997;Gorba 2019;Gorba and Cebrian 2021;Jun and Cowie 1994;Levy and Law 2010;Stevens 2001). Overall, living in an L2 setting has been found to improve the production of L2 sounds.…”

“…Adult learners of a second language (L2) often produce L2 sounds differently from native speakers, as their first language (L1) may have influenced their L2 speech (Best and Tyler, 2007;Flege, 1995;Kuhl, 1991). Gaining experience in the L2 -which may involve length of residence in an L2 setting (e.g., Flege 1987, 1995, Flege et al 1997Gorba 2019;Gorba and Cebrian 2021;Jun and Cowie 1994;Levy and Law 2010), L2 use (e.g., Kartushina and Martin 2019;Piske et al 2001) or L2 instruction (e.g., Dmitrieva et al 2020;Nagle 2019) -may help L2 learners improve their pronunciation in the target language. Moreover, the L1 of an L2 learner may also be affected in the process of learning an L2.…”