Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: A first report

Abstract

Native speakers of Japanese learning English generally have difficulty differentiating the phonemes /r/ and /l/, even after years of experience with English. Previous research that attempted to train Japanese listeners to distinguish this contrast using synthetic stimuli reported little success, especially when transfer to natural tokens containing /r/ and /l/ was tested. In the present study, a different training procedure that emphasized variability among stimulus tokens was used. Japanese subjects were trained in a minimal pair identification paradigm using multiple natural exemplars contrasting /r/ and /l/ from a variety of phonetic environments as stimuli. A pretest-posttest design containing natural tokens was used to assess the effects of training. Results from six subjects showed that the new procedure was more robust than earlier training techniques. Small but reliable differences in performance were obtained between pretest and posttest scores. The results demonstrate the importance of stimulus variability and task-related factors in training nonnative speakers to perceive novel phonetic contrasts that are not distinctive in their native language.

The loss of first language phonetic perception in adopted Koreans

“…This suggests that extensive reexposure may be an essential factor in the recovery of phonetic knowledge, which may be present but difficult to retrieve. It is possible that extensive training, such as that administered by Logan et al (1991) to Japanese learners of English on the /r/ and /l/ contrast, may be able to reactivate the dormant L1 in our adoptees. We are currently administering such a training programme, using Korean phonemes, to some of our Korean adoptees.…”

Audiovisual Training Effects on L2 Speech Perception and Production

“…In DiStefano (2010), however, degraded stimuli were adopted. As predicted by Logan et al (1991), synthetic speech may mislead, or provide subjects with incomplete information about the target phonetic category in speech perception. On the whole, the present training mainly followed the HVPT approach, which emphasizes "natural variability" (Logan et al, 1991;Yamada, 1993).…”

“…As predicted by Logan et al (1991), synthetic speech may mislead, or provide subjects with incomplete information about the target phonetic category in speech perception. On the whole, the present training mainly followed the HVPT approach, which emphasizes "natural variability" (Logan et al, 1991;Yamada, 1993). In comparison, the approach in DiStefano (2010) seems more like LVT, despite the fact that five different speakers were asked to record the training stimuli.…”

Language acquisition in the absence of explicit negative evidence: how important is starting small?

“…More recently, McClelland (1999) and Thomas and McClelland (1997) have used entrenchment-like effects within a Kohonen network (Kohonen, 1984) to account for the apparent inability of non-native speakers of a language to acquire native-level performance in phonological skills (see e.g. Logan et al, 1991), and why only a particular type of retraining regimen may prove effective (see also Merzenich et al, 1996;Tallal et al, 1996). Thus, there are a number of demonstrations that connectionist networks may not learn as effectively when their training environment is altered significantly, as is the case in the incremental training procedure employed by Elman (1991).…”