title: Assimilation of L2 vowels to L1 phonemes governs L2 learning in adulthood: a behavioral and ERP study.
abstract: According to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), articulatory similarity/dissimilarity between sounds of the second language (L2) and the native language (L1) governs L2 learnability in adulthood and predicts L2 sound perception by naïve listeners. We performed behavioral and neurophysiological experiments on two groups of university students at the first and fifth years of the English language curriculum and on a group of naïve listeners. Categorization and discrimination tests, as well as the mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response to L2 sound changes, showed that the discriminatory capabilities of the students did not significantly differ from those of the naïve subjects. In line with the PAM model, we extend the findings of previous behavioral studies showing that, at the neural level, classroom instruction in adulthood relies on assimilation of L2 vowels to L1 phoneme categories and does not trigger improvement in L2 phonetic discrimination. Implications for L2 classroom teaching practices are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio, Università del Salento Lecce, Italy.
authors.forename: Mirko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grimaldi
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio, Università del Salento Lecce, Italy.
authors.forename: Bianca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sisinni
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio, Università del Salento Lecce, Italy.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gili Fivela
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio di Anatomia Umana e Neuroscience, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche e Ambientali, Università del Salento Lecce, Italy.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Invitto
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio, Università del Salento Lecce, Italy.
authors.forename: Donatella
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Resta
authors.affiliation: Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics, Aalto University Espoo, Finland.
authors.forename: Paavo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alku
authors.affiliation: Brain & Mind Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, Aalto University Espoo, Finland ; Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Elvira
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brattico
keywords: L2 classroom learning; adult phoneme perception; event-related potentials; foreign language acquisition; mismatch negativity (MMN); vowel perception