title: Cross-language acoustic similarity predicts perceptual assimilation of Canadian English and Canadian French vowels.
abstract: Monolingual Peruvian Spanish listeners identified natural tokens of the Canadian French (CF) and Canadian English (CE) /ɛ/ and /æ/, produced in five consonantal contexts. The results demonstrate that while the CF vowels were mapped to two different native vowels, /e/ and /a/, in all consonantal contexts, the CE contrast was mapped to the single native vowel /a/ in four out of five contexts. Linear discriminant analysis revealed that acoustic similarity between native and target language vowels was a very good predictor of context-specific perceptual mappings. Predictions are made for Spanish learners of the /ɛ/-/æ/ contrast in CF and CE.
authors.affiliation: MARCS Auditory Laboratories, Building 1, University of Western Sydney, Bullecourt Avenue, Milperra, NSW 2214, Australia. paola.escudero@uws.edu.au
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Escudero
authors.forename: Polina
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vasiliev
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult