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The acquisition of /r/ and /l/ by Japanese learners of English: Evidence that speech production can precede speech perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Amy Sheldon  and
Winifred Strange
Amy Sheldon*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Winifred Strange
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
*
Amy Sheldon, Department of Linguistics, 142 Klaeber Court, University of Minnesota, 320 16th Avenue, S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455
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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the production and perception of English /r/ and /l/ by native Japanese adults learning English in the United States. For some subjects, production of the contrast was more accurate than their perception of it, replicating and extending a previous finding reported by Goto (1971) in Japan. The difficulty in perception of the liquid contrast varied with its position in the word. Prevocalic /r/ and /l/ in consonant clusters yielded the greatest perceptual errors, while word-final liquids were accurately perceived. This pattern of errors is not predictable on the basis of contrastive phonological analysis, but might be the result of acoustic-phonetic factors. Implications for second language pedagogy are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 243 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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