title: On the assimilation-discrimination relationship in American English adults' French vowel learning.
abstract: A quantitative "cross-language assimilation overlap" method for testing predictions of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) was implemented to compare results of a discrimination experiment with the listeners' previously reported assimilation data. The experiment examined discrimination of Parisian French (PF) front rounded vowels /y/ and /oe/. Three groups of American English listeners differing in their French experience (no experience [NoExp], formal experience [ModExp], and extensive formal-plus-immersion experience [HiExp]) performed discrimination of PF /y-u/, /y-o/, /oe-o/, /oe-u/, /y-i/, /y-epsilon/, /oe-epsilon/, /oe-i/, /y-oe/, /u-i/, and /a-epsilon/. Vowels were in bilabial /rabVp/ and alveolar /radVt/ contexts. More errors were found for PF front vs back rounded vowel pairs (16%) than for PF front unrounded vs rounded pairs (2%). Overall, ModExp listeners did not perform more accurately (11% errors) than NoExp listeners (13% errors). Extensive immersion experience, however, was associated with fewer errors (3%) than formal experience alone, although discrimination of PF /y-u/ remained relatively poor (12% errors) for HiExp listeners. More errors occurred on pairs involving front vs back rounded vowels in alveolar context (20% errors) than in bilabial (11% errors). Significant correlations were revealed between listeners' assimilation overlap scores and their discrimination errors, suggesting that the PAM may be extended to second-language (L2) vowel learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biobehavioral Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. elevy@tc.columbia.edu
authors.forename: Erika S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Levy
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception