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The limits of extended naturalistic exposure on the perceptual mastery of English /r/ and /l/ by adult Japanese learners of English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Naoyuki Takagi  and
Virginia Mann
Naoyuki Takagi*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama, Birmingham
Virginia Mann*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
*
Virginia A. Mann, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92717
Virginia A. Mann, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92717
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Abstract

To evaluate the effect of extended adult exposure to authentic spoken English on the perceptual mastery of English /r/ and /l/, we tested 12 native speakers of English (A), 12 experienced Japanese (EJ) who had spent 12 or more years in the United States, and 12 less experienced Japanese (LJ) who had spent less than one year in the United States. The tests included the forced-choice identification of naturally produced /r/s and /1/s and the labeling of word-initial synthetic tokens that varied F2 and F3 to form an /r/-/l/-/w/ continuum. The F.Js’ mean performance in both tasks was closer to that of the As than the LJs, but nonetheless fell short. Extended exposure may improve /r/-/l/ identification accuracy; it does not ensure perfect perceptual mastery.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 380 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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