Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T02:31:59.823Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Comparison of native versus nonnative perception of vowel length contrasts in Arabic and Japanese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2011

KIMIKO TSUKADA
KIMIKO TSUKADA*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Kimiko Tsukada, Department of International Studies, Macquarie University, North Ryde NSW 2109, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study assessed the prediction that individuals are able to use the knowledge from their first language (L1) in processing the comparable sound contrasts in an unknown language. Two languages, Arabic and Japanese, which utilize vowel duration contrastively, were examined. Native Arabic (NA) and native Japanese (NJ) listeners' discrimination accuracy for native (known) and nonnative (unknown) vowel length contrasts was assessed in an AXB discrimination test. A group of Australian English (OZ) speakers who do not know either Arabic or Japanese participated as a control group. Despite the expectation that native listeners positively transfer and generalize the L1 knowledge to process unknown languages with equivalent phonetic characteristics, both the NA and NJ groups were clearly less accurate in discriminating vowel length contrasts in unknown languages. Further, they showed no advantage over the OZ listeners who have limited experience with vowel length contrasts in their L1. These results suggest that, not only for stop place contrasts examined previously, but also for vowel length contrasts, experience with specific phonetic contrasts may not be sufficient for attaining truly nativelike discrimination accuracy.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 501 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abramson, A. S., & Tingsabadh, K. (1999). Thai final stops: Cross-language perception. Phonetica, 56, 111–122.Google Scholar
Alghamdi, M. M. (1998). A spectrographic analysis of Arabic vowels: A cross-dialectal study. Journal of King Saud University, 10, 3–24.Google Scholar
Aoyama, K., Flege, J. E., Guion, S. G., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Yamada, T. (2004). Perceived phonetic dissimilarity and L2 speech learning: The case of Japanese /r/ and English /l/ and /r/. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 233–250.Google Scholar
Bohn, O.-S. (1995). Cross-language speech perception in adults: First language transfer doesn't tell it all. In Strange, W. (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language speech research (pp. 275–300). Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Cebrian, J. (2006). Experience and the use of non-native duration in L2 vowel categorization. Journal of Phonetics, 34, 372–387.Google Scholar
Cowan, W. (1970). The vowels of Egyptian Arabic. Word, 26, 94–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, F. (2006). The acoustic characteristics of /hVd/ vowels in the speech of some Australian teenagers. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 26, 147–179.Google Scholar
Cox, F., & Palethorpe, S. (2007). Illustrations of the IPA: Australian English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37, 341–350.Google Scholar
de Jong, K., & Zawaydeh, B. (2002). Comparing stress, lexical focus, and segmental focus: Patterns of variation in Arabic vowel duration. Journal of Phonetics, 30, 53–75.Google Scholar
Dietrich, C., Swingley, D., & Werker, J. (2007). Native language governs interpretation of salient speech sound differences at 18 months. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 41, 16027–16031.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drozdík, L. (1973). The vowel system of Egyptian colloquial Arabic. Asian and African Studies, 9, 121–127.Google Scholar
Engstrand, O., & Krull, D. (1994). Durational correlates of quantity in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian: Cross-language evidence for a theory of adaptive dispersion. Phonetica, 51, 80–91.Google Scholar
Flege, J., & MacKay, I. R. A. (2004). Perceiving vowels in a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 1–34.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, W. (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 233–277). Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E. (2003). Assessing constraints on second-language segmental production and perception. In Meyer, A. & Schiller, N. (Eds), Phonetics and phonology in language comprehension and production, differences and similarities (pp. 319–355). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., MacKay, I. R. A., & Meador, D. (1999). Native Italian speakers' production and perception of English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 2973–2987.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Pruitt, J. C. (2000). An investigation of current models of second language speech perception: The case of Japanese adults' perception of English consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 2711–2724.Google Scholar
Hallé, P. A., Best, C. T., & Levitt, A. (1999). Phonetic vs. phonological influences on French listeners' perception of American English approximants. Journal of Phonetics, 27, 281–306.Google Scholar
Hallé, P. A., Chang, Y.-C., & Best, C. T. (2004). Identification and discrimination of Mandarin Chinese tones by Mandarin Chinese vs. French listeners. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 395–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harnsberger, J. D. (2001). On the relationship between identification and discrimination of non-native nasal consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 110, 489–503.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrington, J., & Cassidy, S. (1994). Dynamic and target theories of vowel classification: Evidence from monophthongs and diphthongs in Australian English. Language and Speech, 37, 357–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillenbrand, J., Gerry, L., Clark, K., & Wheeler, K. (1995). Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 3099–3111.Google Scholar
Hirata, Y. (2004a). Effects of speaking rate on the vowel length distinction in Japanese. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 565–589.Google Scholar
Hirata, Y. (2004b). Training native English speakers to perceive Japanese length contrasts in word versus sentence contexts. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116, 2384–2394.Google Scholar
Hirata, Y., & Kelly, S. (2010). Effects of lips and hands on auditory learning of second-language speech sounds. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 53, 298–310.Google Scholar
Hirata, Y., & Tsukada, K. (2009). Effects of speaking rate and vowel length on formant frequency displacements in Japanese. Phonetica, 66, 129–149.Google Scholar
Hirata, Y., Whitehurst, E., & Cullings, E. (2007). Training native English speakers to identify Japanese vowel length contrast with sentences at varied speaking rates. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 121, 3837–3845.Google Scholar
Højen, A., & Flege, J. (2006). Early learners' discrimination of second-language vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 3072–3084.Google Scholar
Ingram, J. C. L., & Park, S.-G. (1997). Cross-language vowel perception and production by Japanese and Korean learners of English. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 343–370.Google Scholar
Kehoe, M. M., & Stoel-Gammon, C. (2001). Development of syllable structure in English-speaking children with particular reference to rhymes. Journal of Child Language, 28, 393–342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, Y.-S., Vakoch, D. A., & Wurm, L. H. (1996). Tone perception in Cantonese and Mandarin: A cross-linguistic comparison. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 25, 527–542.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maye, J., Weiss, D. J., & Aslin, R. N. (2008). Statistical phonetic learning in infants: Facilitation and feature generalization. Developmental Science, 11, 122–134.Google Scholar
McAllister, R., Flege, J. E., & Piske, T. (2002). The influence of L1 on the acquisition of Swedish quantity by native speakers of Spanish, English and Estonian. Journal of Phonetics, 30, 229–258.Google Scholar
Mitleb, F. (1984). Vowel length contrast in Arabic and English: A spectrographic test. Journal of Phonetics, 12, 229–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mugitani, R., Rons, F., Fais, L., Dietrich, C., Werker, J. F., & Amano, S. (2009). Perception of vowel length by Japanese- and English-learning infants. Developmental Psychology, 45, 236–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nasr, R. T. (1960). Phonemic length in Lebanese Arabic. Phonetica, 5, 209–211.Google Scholar
Piske, T., MacKay, I. R. A., & Flege, J. E. (2001). Factors affecting degree of foreign accent in an L2: A review. Journal of Phonetics, 29, 191–215.Google Scholar
Sato, Y., Sogabe, Y., & Mazuka, R. (2010). Discrimination of phonemic vowel length by Japanese infants. Developmental Psychology, 46, 106–119.Google Scholar
Strange, W. (1995). Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research. Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Strange, W., Bohn, O.-S., Nishi, K., & Trent, S. A. (2005). Contextual variation in the acoustic and perceptual similarity of North German and American English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118, 1751–1762.Google Scholar
Strange, W., Bohn, O.-S., Trent, S. A., & Nishi, K. (2004). Acoustic and perceptual similarity of North German and American English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 115, 1791–1807.Google Scholar
Tajima, K., Kato, H., Rothwell, A., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Munhall, K. (2008). Training English listeners to perceive phonemic length contrasts in Japanese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 397–413.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thelwall, R., & Sa'Adeddin, M. A. (1990). Arabic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20, 37–39.Google Scholar
Tsukada, K. (1999). An acoustic phonetic analysis of Japanese-accented English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University, Sydney.Google Scholar
Tsukada, K. (2006). Cross-language perception of word-final stops in Thai and English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 309–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsukada, K. (2007). Cross-language perception of word-final stops by multilingual listerners: Preliminary results on the effect of listerners' first language (L1) backgrounds. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing, 10, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsukada, K. (2008). Native Cantonese listeners' perception of word-final stops in English and Thai. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing, 11, 31–38.Google Scholar
Tsukada, K. (2009a). An acoustic comparison of vowel length contrasts in Arabic, Japanese and Thai: Durational and spectral data. International Journal of Asian Language Processing, 19, 127–138.Google Scholar
Tsukada, K. (2009b). Durational characteristics of English vowels produced by Japanese and Thai second language (L2) learners. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 29, 287–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsukada, K., & Ishihara, S. (2007). The effect of first language (L1) in cross-language speech perception: Comparison of word-final stop discrimination by English, Japanese and Thai listeners. Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan, 11, 82–92.Google Scholar
Tsukada, K., & Roengpitya, R. (2008). Discrimination of English and Thai words ending with voiceless stops by native Thai listeners differing in English experience. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38, 325–347.Google Scholar
Vance, T. J. (1986). An introduction to Japanese phonology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Wayland, R., & Guion, S. (2003). Perceptual discrimination of Thai tones by naïve and experienced learners of Thai. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 113–129.Google Scholar
Wayland, R. P., & Guion, S. G. (2004). Training English and Chinese listeners to perceive Thai tones: A preliminary report. Language Learning, 54, 681–712.Google Scholar
Wayland, R. P., & Li, B. (2008). Effects of two training procedures in cross-language perception of tones. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 250–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar