TY - JOUR
T1 - (Mis) perception of consonant clusters and short vowels in English as a foreign language
AU - Leung, Alex
AU - Young-Scholten, Martha
AU - Almurashi, Wael
AU - Ghadanfari, Saleh
AU - Nash, Chloe
AU - Outhwaite, Olivia
PY - 2021/8/9
Y1 - 2021/8/9
N2 - Research addressing second language (L2) speech is expanding. Studies increasingly demonstrate that a learner’s first language (L1) filters the L2 input, resulting in learners misperceiving what they have heard. This L1 filter can result in learners perceiving sounds not actually present in the input. We report on a study which explored English consonant clusters and short, unstressed vowel perception of 70 Arabic-, Mandarin-, Spanish-speaking foreign language learners and 19 native English speakers. These are the vowels which speakers from two of the L1s typically insert in their production of English to break up L1-disallowed consonant clusters and the schwa which is documented to cause both perception and production problems. Results show that participants misperceive stimuli containing consonant clusters and counterparts where clusters are broken up by epenthetic/prothetic elements. In line with Sakai, Mari & Colleen Moorman 2018. We call for the inclusion of such findings on perception in pedagogical advice on pronunciation.
AB - Research addressing second language (L2) speech is expanding. Studies increasingly demonstrate that a learner’s first language (L1) filters the L2 input, resulting in learners misperceiving what they have heard. This L1 filter can result in learners perceiving sounds not actually present in the input. We report on a study which explored English consonant clusters and short, unstressed vowel perception of 70 Arabic-, Mandarin-, Spanish-speaking foreign language learners and 19 native English speakers. These are the vowels which speakers from two of the L1s typically insert in their production of English to break up L1-disallowed consonant clusters and the schwa which is documented to cause both perception and production problems. Results show that participants misperceive stimuli containing consonant clusters and counterparts where clusters are broken up by epenthetic/prothetic elements. In line with Sakai, Mari & Colleen Moorman 2018. We call for the inclusion of such findings on perception in pedagogical advice on pronunciation.
KW - consonant clusters
KW - illusory vowels and epenthesis
KW - perceptual illusion
KW - second language perception
KW - short vowels and schwa
KW - Linguistics and Language
KW - Language and Linguistics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113348337&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1515/iral-2021-0030
DO - 10.1515/iral-2021-0030
M3 - Article
JO - IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
JF - IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
SN - 0019-042X
M1 - 20210030
ER -