title: Effects of language experience on the discrimination of the Portuguese palatal lateral by nonnative listeners.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate (1) whether manner or place takes precedence over the other during a phonological category discrimination task and (2) whether this pattern of precedence persists during the early stages of acquisition of the L2. In doing so, we investigated the Portuguese palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ since it differs from English /l/ only by the place of articulation, and from English /j/ only by the manner of articulation. Our results indicate that monolinguals' perception of the non-native sound is dominated by manner while Portuguese learners show a different pattern of results. The results are interpreted as being consistent with evidence suggesting that manner may be neurophysiologically dominant over place of articulation. The study adds further details to the literature on the effects of experience on language acquisition, and has significant clinical implications for bilingualism in general, and foreign accent training, in particular.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology , University of Tennessee Health Science Center, University of Tennessee , Knoxville , TN , USA.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Santos Oliveira
authors.affiliation: a Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology , University of Tennessee Health Science Center, University of Tennessee , Knoxville , TN , USA.
authors.forename: Devin M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Casenhiser
authors.affiliation: a Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology , University of Tennessee Health Science Center, University of Tennessee , Knoxville , TN , USA.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hedrick
authors.affiliation: b Department of Electronics, Telecom. & Informatics/IEETA , University of Aveiro , Aveiro , Portugal.
authors.forename: António
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Teixeira
authors.affiliation: c Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Houston , Texas City , TX , USA.
authors.forename: Ferenc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bunta
mesh_terms: D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: English; Portuguese; language learning; non-native; phonological categorisation; speech discrimination; speech perception