L1-Spanish speakers' acquisition of the English /i/-I/ contrast: duration-based perception is not the initial developmental stage.
L1-Spanish L2-English listeners' perception of a Canadian-English /bIt//bId/-/bit/-/bid/ continuum was investigated. Results were largely consistent with the developmental stages for L1-Spanish listeners' acquisition of English /i/ and /I/ hypothesized by Escudero (2000): Stage 0, inability to distinguish. Stage 1, duration based. Stage 2, duration and spectral based. Stage 3, L1-English-like primarily spectral based. However, on the basis of the results an additional stage was hypothesized: Stage 1/2, multidimensional-category-goodness-difference assimilation to Spanish /i/, with English vowel tokens perceived as good examples of Spanish /i/ labeled as English /I/ and poor examples labeled as English /i/. It is hypothesized that L1-Spanish listeners' preference for duration cues is not an initial strategy for distinguishing English /i/ and /I/. Rather, it is a secondary developmental stage which emerges from an earlier stage when both spectral and duration cues are used.
University of Alberta, Canada. geoff.morrison@anu.edu.au
Geoffrey Stewart
GS
Morrison
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D019303:Multilingualism; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult