Variation in the perception of an L2 contrast: A combined phonetic and phonological account

Abstract

The present study argues that variation across listeners in the perception of a non-native contrast is due to two factors: the listener-specic weighting of auditory dimensions and the listener-specic construction of new segmental representations. The interaction of both factors is shown to take place in the perception grammar, which can be modelled within an OT framework. These points are illustrated with the acquisition of the Dutch three-member labiodental contrast [V v f] by German learners of Dutch, focussing on four types of learners from the perception study by Hamann and Sennema (2005a).

Language-specific distributional learning advantages in Singapore English-Mandarin bilingual adults

“…On the other hand, the link that we found between retroflexion in speech and perceptual boundary thresholds appears to contrast with findings in existing studies on Mandarin speakers. Chang et al (2013) suggested that deretroflexion in Taiwan Mandarin speakers is linked to a higher degree of tolerance for perceptual ambiguity in retroflexionthis is the opposite of what we found with our participants. However, this difference in our findings could be related to the fact that Chang et al (2013) Taiwan Mandarin.…”

“…Chang et al (2013) suggested that deretroflexion in Taiwan Mandarin speakers is linked to a higher degree of tolerance for perceptual ambiguity in retroflexionthis is the opposite of what we found with our participants. However, this difference in our findings could be related to the fact that Chang et al (2013) Taiwan Mandarin. This demonstrates that speech perception tests should take into consideration the unique characteristics of the native language variety of its participants.…”

“…This paradigm would allow us to obtain fine-grained measures of phoneme contrast sensitivity across a continuum without requiring participants to choose a best-fit prototype of each sound.While there does not yet exist evidence pointing towards a perceptionproduction link for Mandarin alveolar-retroflex contrasts, some studies appear to show that there are links between the variety of Mandarin that is spoken and the manner in which the standard Beijing Mandarin alveolar-retroflex contrast is perceived. For instance,Chang (2012) andChang et al (2013) investigated Taiwan and Beijing Mandarin speakers' perception of an alveolar-retroflex contrast continuum in standard Beijing Mandarin, and found that Taiwan Mandarin speakers were typically more accepting of a wider range of acoustic ambiguity in retroflexion as compared to standard Beijing Mandarin speakers Chang et al (2013). suggested that this pattern of perceptual responses reflects how clearly retroflexion is produced in Taiwan Mandarin (less distinct from the alveolar to deretroflexion) as compared to Beijing Mandarin (more distinct from the alveolar).…”

Differential Cue Weighting in Mandarin Sibilant Production

“…This is frequently attributed to contact with Southern Min, which lacks retroflex consonants (Chuang & Fon, 2010;Kubler, 1985). The use of retroflexion has socio-indexical value; it is associated with higher education levels and distinguishes standardized Mandarin pronunciation from "dialect-accented" Mandarin (Chang et al, 2013).…”

Nominal plurals in Sign Language of the Netherlands: Accounting for allomorphy and variation

“…As an example, one group of signers could use sideward reduplication of latnouns very frequently while another group could not use it at all, requiring two grammars with fundamentally different rankings of the respective constraints. Future work should investigate such intra-signer variation and possible user types, in order to determine how such variation can be captured with different grammars (for an example from L2 acquisition, seeHamann 2009).…”