This study evaluated the effect of input variation on the production and perception of English phonetic segments by native Spanish
adults who had immigrated to the United States after the age of 16 years. The native Spanish (NS) participants were assigned to
three groups of 20 each according to years of English input (years of U.S. residence multiplied by percent English use outside the
home). Experiment 1 assessed the perceived relation between English and Spanish vowels. It yielded similar results for the NS
groups designated “Low input” (M = 0.2 years of input), “Mid” (M = 1.2 years) and “High”
(M = 3.0 years). Experiments 2–4 examined English vowel discrimination, vowel production and consonant
discrimination. Apart from a modest improvement in vowel discrimination, these experiments showed little improvement as years of
English input increased. One possible explanation for the essentially null finding of this study is that input matters little or
not at all when an L2 is learned naturalistically following the closure of a critical period. Another possibility is that adequate
native speaker input is crucial for L2 speech learning but the input differences evaluated here were insufficient to yield
measurable improvements in performance. We conclude the article by illustrating a new technique that might be used to choose
between these competing explanations.
Aslin, R., & Pisoni, D. (1980). Some developmental processes in speech perception. In G. Yeni-Komshianet al. (Eds.), Child phonology, Volume 2, Perception (pp. 67–96). New York, NY: Academic press.
Bassetti, B. (2008). Orthographic input and second language phonology. In T. Piske & M. Young-Scholten (Eds.), Input matters in SLA. (pp. 191–206). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Bassetti, B. (2017). Orthography affects second language speech: Double letters and geminate production in English. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(11), 1835–1842.
Bates, E., & Elman, J. (1996). Learning rediscovered. Science, 274(5294), 1849–1850.
Bruer, J. (2001). A critical and sensitive period primer. In D. Bailey, J. Bruer, F. Symons, & J. Licthman (Eds.), Critical thinking about critical periods (pp. 3–26). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.
Cowie, F. (1999). What’s within? Nativism reconsidered. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Larson, R. (1987). Validity and reliability of the experience-sampling method. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 1751, 526–537.
Cutler, A., Weber, A., Smits, R., & Cooper, N. (2004). Patterns of English phoneme confusions by native and non-native listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116(6), 3668–3678.
Dalbor, J. (1980). Spanish pronunciation. Theory and practice. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
DeKeyser, R. (2000). The robustness of critical period effects in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 221, 499–533.
DeKeyser, R., & Larson-Hall, J. (2005). What does the critical period mean? In J. Kroll & A. de Groot (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism. Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 88–108). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dimitrieva, O., Llanos, F., Shultz, A., & Francis, A. (2015). Phonological status, not voice onset time, determines the acoustic realization of onset f0 as a secondary cue in Spanish and English. Journal of Phonetics, 401, 55–95.
Docherty, G., Watt, D., Llamas, C., Hall, D., & Nycz, J. (2011). Variation in voice onset time along the Scottish-English border. In W. Lee (Ed.), Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVII): August 17–21, 2011(pp. 591–594). Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.
Eguchi, S., & Hirsch, I. (1969). Development of speech sounds in children. Acta Otolyaryngologica, Supplement 157.
Elliott, L. (1979). Performance of children ages 9 to 17 years on a test of speech intelligibility in noise using sentence material with controlled word predictability. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 661, 651–653.
Elliott, L., Busse, L., Partridge, R., Rupert, J., & DeGraaff, R. (1986). Adult and child discrimination of CV syllables differing in Voicing Onset Time. Child Development, 571, 628–635.
Flege, J. & Hammond, R. (1982). Mimicry of non-distinctive phonetic differences between language varieties. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5(1), 1–17.
Flege, J. E. (1987). A critical period for L2 learning to pronounce foreign languages?Applied Linguistics, 81, 162–177.
Flege, J. E. (1988). The production and perception of foreign language speech sounds. In H. Winitz (Ed.), Human communication and its disorders. A review – 1988 (pp. 224–401). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Flege, J. E. (1989). Differences in inventory size affects the location but not the precision of tongue positioning in vowel production. Language and Speech, 321, 123–147.
Flege, J. E. (1991a). Age of learning affects the authenticity of voice onset time (VOT) in stop consonants produced in a second language. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 891, 395–411.
Flege, J. E. (1991b). Orthographic evidence for the perceptual identification of vowels in Spanish and English. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 431, 701–731.
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second-language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 229–273). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Flege, J. E. (2003). Methods for assessing the perception of vowels in a second language. In E. Fava & A. Mioni (Eds.), Issues in clinical linguistics (pp. 19–44). Padova: Uni Press.
Flege, J. E. (2008). Give input a chance! In T. Piske & Young-Scholten, M. (Eds.), Input matters in SLA (pp. 175–190). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Flege, J. E. (2019). It’s input that matters most, not age. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
Flege, J. E., Bohn, O. -S., & Jang, S. (1997). Effects of experience on non-native speakers’ production and perception of English vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 251, 437–470.
Flege, J. E., & Eefting, W. (1986). Linguistic and developmental effects on the production and perception of stop consonants. Phonetica, 431, 155–171.
Flege, J. E., & Eefting, W. (1987). Production and perception of English stops by native Spanish speakers. Journal of Phonetics, 151, 67–83.
Flege, J. E., & Eefting, W. (1988). Imitation of a VOT continuum by native speakers of English and Spanish: Evidence for phonetic category formation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 831, 729–740.
Flege, J. E., Frieda, E., & Nozawa, T. (1997). Amount of native-language (L1) use affects the pronunciation of an L2. Journal of Phonetics, 251, 169–186.
Flege, J. E., Frieda, E., Walley, A., & Randazza, L. (1998). Lexical factors and segmental accuracy in second language speech production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 201, 155–187.
Flege, J. E., & Liu, S. (2001). The effect of experience on adults’ acquisition of a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 231, 527–552.
Flege, J. E., & MacKay, I. (2011). What accounts for “age” effects on overall degree of foreign accent? In M. Wrembel, M. Kul & Dziubalska-Koɫaczyk, K. (Eds.), Achievements and perspectives in the acquisition of second language speech. New Sounds 2010, Vol. 21 (pp. 65–82). Bern: Peter Lang.
Flege, J. E., & Munro, M. (1994). The word unit in second language speech production and perception. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 161, 381–411.
Flege, J. E., Munro, M., & MacKay, I. (1995). Factors affecting strength of perceived foreign accent in a second language. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 971, 3125–3134.
Flege, J. E., Schirru, C., & MacKay, I. (2003). Interaction between the native and second language phonetic subsystems. Speech Communication, 401, 467–491.
Flege, J. E., & Schmidt, A. (1995). Native speakers of Spanish show rate-dependent processing of English stop consonants. Phonetica, 521, 90–111.
Flege, J. E., Schmidt, A., & Wharton, G. (1996). Age of learning affects rate-dependent processing of stops in a second language. Phonetica, 531, 143–161.
Fox, R. A., Flege, J. E., & Munro, M. (1995). The perception of English and Spanish vowels by native English and Spanish listeners: A multidimensional scaling analysis. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 971, 2540–2551.
Frieda, E., Walley, A., Flege, J. E., & Sloane, M. (1999). Adults’ perception of native and nonnative vowels: Implications for the perceptual magnet effect. Perception & Psychophysics, 61(3), 561–577.
Garcia, P., & Froud, K. (2018). Perception of American English vowels by sequential Spanish-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2(1), 80–103.
Granena, G., & Long, M. (2012). Age of onset, length of residence, language aptitude, and ultimate attainment in three linguistic domains. Second Language Research, 29(3), 311–343.
Guion, S., Flege, J. E., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Pruitt, J. (2000). An investigation of current models of second language speech perception: The case of Japanese adults’ perception of English consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107(5), 2711–24.
Hazan, V., & Barrett, S. (1999). The development of phoneme categorization in children aged 6 to 12 years. In J. Ohala, Y. Hasegawa, M. Ohala, D. Granville, & A. Bailey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetics Sciences (pp. 2493–2496). Berkeley, CA: Department of Linguistics, UCLA.
Hyltenstam, K., & Abrahamsson, N. (2003). Maturational constraints in SLA. In C. Doughty & M. Long (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 539–588). London: Blackwell.
Johnson, C. (2000). Children’s phoneme identification in reverberation and noise. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 431, 129–143.
Koenig, L. (2001). Distributional characteristics of VOT in children’s voiceless aspirated stops and interpretation of developmental trends. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 441, 1058–1068.
Labov, W., Ash, S., & Boberg, C. (2006). The atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lee, S., Potamianos, A., & Narayanan, S. (1999). Acoustics of children’s speech: Developmental changes of temporal and spectral parameters. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1051, 1455–1468.
Lengeris, A., & Hazan, V. (2007). Cross-language perceptual assimilation and discrimination of southern British English vowels by Greek and Japanese learners of English. In W. Barry & J. Trouvain (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 1641 to 1644). Saarbrücken: Saarland University.
Lenneberg, E. (1967). Biological foundations of language. New York, NY: Wiley.
Long, M. (1990). Maturational constrains on language development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12(3), 251–285.
MacKay, I., Meador, D., & Flege, J. E. (2001). The identification of English consonants by native speakers of Italian. Phonetica, 581, 103–125.
McGarrigle, R., Munro, K., Dawes, P., Stewart, A., Moore, D., Barry, J., & Amitay, S. (2014). Listening effort and fatigue: What exactly are we measuring?International Journal of Audiology, 53(7) 433–440.
Moyer, A. (2008). Input as a critical means to an end: Quantity and quality of experience in L2 phonological attainment. In T. Piske & M. Young-Scholten (Eds.), Input matters in SLA (pp. 159–174). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Piske, T. & Young-Scholten, M. (2008). Input matters in SLA. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Sampson, G. (2005). The ‘Language Instinct’ debate. New York, NY: Continuum.
Schmidt, A., & Flege, J. E. (1995). Effects of speaking rate changes on native and nonnative production. Phonetica, 521, 41–54.
Schmidt, A., & Flege, J. E. (1996). Speaking rate effects on stops produced by Spanish and English monolinguals and Spanish/English bilinguals. Phonetica, 531, 162–179.
Scholes, R. (1967). Phonemic categorization of synthetic vocalic stimuli by speakers of Japanese, Spanish, Persian and American English. Language and Speech, 101, 46–68.
Snodgrass, J., Levy-Berger, G., & Haydon, M. (1985). Human experimental psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stölten, K., Abrahamsson, N., & Hyltenstam, K. (2014). Effects of age of learning on voice onset time: Categorical perception of Swedish stops by near-native L2 speakers. Language and Speech, 57(4), 425–450.
Tomasello, M. (2009). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Van Alphen, P., & Smits, R. (2004). Acoustical and perceptual analysis of the voicing distinction in Dutch initial plosives: The role of prevoicing. Journal of Phonetics, 321, 455–491.
Van Alphen, P., & McQueen, J. (2006). The effect of voice onset time differences on lexical access in Dutch. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32(1), 178–196.
Whiteside, S., & Dobbin, R. H. (2003). Patterns of variability in voice onset time: A developmental study of motor speech skills in humans. Neuroscience Letters, 347(1), 29–32.
Yeni-Komshian, G., Flege, J. E., & Liu, S. (2002). Pronunciation proficiency in the first and second languages of Korean-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3(2), 131–149.
Cited by (16)
Cited by 16 other publications
Ng, Bee Kee & Poh Shin Chiew
2024. L1 Influence on Stop Consonant Production: A Case Study of Malaysian Mandarin-English Bilinguals. Asian Englishes 26:2 ► pp. 310 ff.
Wang, Fenqi, Delin Deng, Kevin Tang & Ratree Wayland
2024. The Effect of Pitch Accent on the Perception of English Lexical Stress: Evidence from English and Mandarin Chinese Listeners. Languages 9:3 ► pp. 87 ff.
2023. Age effects in second language acquisition: Expanding the emergentist account. Brain and Language 241 ► pp. 105269 ff.
Leppik, Katrin, Pärtel Lippus & Eva Liina Asu
2023. The perception and production of Estonian vowels and vocalic quantity contrasts by Spanish L1 learners. Ampersand 11 ► pp. 100147 ff.
Turner, James
2023. The role of L2 input in developing a novel L2 contrast phonetically and phonologically: Production evidence from a residence abroad context. Second Language Research
Yumo, Ci, Cristina Flores & Diana Moreira de Oliveira
2023. Perceção das consoantes fricativas do português língua segunda por aprendentes chineses. Diacrítica 36:2 ► pp. 51 ff.
Saito, Kazuya, Magdalena Kachlicka, Yui Suzukida, Katya Petrova, Bradford J. Lee & Adam Tierney
2022. Auditory precision hypothesis-L2: Dimension-specific relationships between auditory processing and second language segmental learning. Cognition 229 ► pp. 105236 ff.
Flege, James Emil
2021. New Methods for Second Language (L2) Speech Research. In Second Language Speech Learning, ► pp. 119 ff.
Flege, James Emil & Ocke-Schwen Bohn
2021. The Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r). In Second Language Speech Learning, ► pp. 3 ff.
Fouz-González, Jonás & Jose A. Mompean
2021. EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF PHONETIC SYMBOLS AND KEYWORDS AS LABELS FOR PERCEPTUAL TRAINING. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 43:2 ► pp. 297 ff.
Setter, Jane & Takehiko Makino
2021. Pronunciation Teaching. In The Cambridge Handbook of Phonetics, ► pp. 527 ff.
Casillas, Joseph V.
2020. The Longitudinal Development of Fine‐Phonetic Detail: Stop Production in a Domestic Immersion Program. Language Learning 70:3 ► pp. 768 ff.
Wang, Xinchun & Jidong Chen
2020. The Acquisition of Mandarin Consonants by English Learners: The Relationship between Perception and Production. Languages 5:2 ► pp. 20 ff.
Kartushina, Natalia & Clara D. Martin
2019. Third-language learning affects bilinguals’ production in both their native languages: A longitudinal study of dynamic changes in L1, L2 and L3 vowel production. Journal of Phonetics 77 ► pp. 100920 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 august 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.