The influence of phoneme inventory on elicited speech errors in Arabic speakers of English
Previous studies have shown that nonnative phonemic contrasts pose perceptual difficulties for L2 learners, but less is known about
how these contrasts affect speech production in L2 learners. In the present study, we elicited speech errors in a tongue twister
task investigating L1 Arabic speakers producing L2 English words. Two sets of word productions were contrasted: words with
phonemic contrasts existing in both L1 Arabic and L2 English (e.g. tip vs dip, sing vs
zing) or words with phonemic contrasts existing in English alone (pit vs bit,
fat vs vat). Results showed that phonemic contrasts that do not exist in Arabic induced
significantly more speech errors in L2 Arabic speakers of English compared to native English speakers than did phonemic contrasts
found in both languages. Implications of these findings for representations in L2 learners are discussed.
Article outline
- Method
- Participants
- Materials
- Procedure
- Results
- Discussion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
References
Aoyama, K., Flege, J., Guion, S., Akahane-Yamada, R., and Yamada, T.
(
2004)
Perceived phonetic dissimilarity and L2 speech learning: the case of Japanese /r/ and English /l/ and /r/.
Journal of Phonetics, 321, 233–50.
Baars, B. J., Motley, M. T. & MacKay, D. G.
(
1975)
Output editing for lexical status in artificially elicited slips of the tongue.
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 141, 382–391.
Balukas, C. & Koops, C.
(
2015)
Spanish-English bilingual voice onset time in spontaneous code-switching.
International Journal of Bilingualism, 191, 423–443.
Bongaerts, T., van Summeren, C., Planken, B., and Schils, E.
(
1997)
Age and ultimate attainment in the pronunciation of a foreign language.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 191, 447–465.
Broersma, M.
(
2002)
Comprehension of non-native speech: Inaccurate phoneme processing and activation of lexical competitors. In:
Hansen, J. and
Pellom, B. L. (eds)
Seventh International Conference on Spoken Language Processing. Denver, CO: Center for Spoken Language.
Broersma, M., and Cutler, A.
(
2011)
Competition dynamics of second-language listening.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 641, 74–95.
Brysbaert, M. & New, B.
(
2009)
Moving beyond Kucera and Francis: A Critical Evaluation of Current Word Frequency Norms and the Introduction of a New and Improved Word Frequency Measure for American English.
Behavior Research Methods, 411, 977–990
Chan, K. Y. and Vitevitch, M. S.
(
2015)
The influence of neighborhood density on the recognition of Spanish-accented words.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 411, 69–85.
Cutler, A., Weber, A., and Otake, T.
(
2006)
Asymmetric mapping from phonetic to lexical representations in second-language listening.
Journal of Phonetics, 341, 269–284.
Cutler, A., and Otake, T.
(
2004)
Pseudo-homophony in non-native listening.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1151, 2392.
Dell, G. S.
(
1986)
A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production.
Psychological Review, 931, 283–321.
Dell, G. S., Reed, K. D., Adams, D. R., and Meyer, A. S.
(
2000)
Speech errors, phonotactic constraints, and implicit learning: A study of the role of experience in language production.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 261, 1355–1367.
Flege, J. E.
(
1980)
Phonetic Approximation in Second Language Acquisition.
Language Learning, 301, 117–134.
Flege, James. E.
(
1987)
The production of ‘New’ and ‘Similar’ phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification.”
Journal of Phonetics, 151, 47–65.
Flege, J. E., and Port, R.
(
1981)
Cross-language phonetic interference: Arabic to English.
Language and Speech, 241, 125–146.
Goldinger, S. D.
(
1996)
Words and voices: Episodic traces in spoken word identification and recognition memory.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 221, 1166–1183.
Goldrick, M., Runnqvist, E. and Costa, A.
(
2014)
Language switching makes pronunciation less nativelike.
Psychological Science, 251, 1031–1036.
Gollan, T. H. and Goldrick, M.
(
2012)
Does bilingualism twist your tongue? Cognition, 1251, 491–497.
Greenberg, J.
(
1966)
Language Universals. The Hague: Mouton.
Hyltenstam, K., and Abrahamsson, N.
(
2003)
Maturational constraints in SLA. In
Doughty and
Long (Eds.),
The handbook of second language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Blackwell.
Jakobson, R.
(
1971)
Selected Writings Volume 1: Phonological Studies. The Hague: Mouton.
Kučera, H., and Francis, W. N.
(
1967)
Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, RI: Brown University Press.
Li, C., Goldrick, M. & Gollan, T. H.
(
2017)
Bilinguals’ Twisted Tongues: Frequency Lag or Interference? Memory & Cognition, 451, 600–610.
Lombardi, L.
(
2002)
Coronal epenthesis and markedness.
Phonology, 191, 219–251.
Luce, P. A., and Pisoni, D. B.
(
1998)
Recognizing spoken words: The neighborhood activation model.
Ear and Hearing, 191, 1–36.
Nusbaum, H. C., Pisoni, D. B., and Davis, C. K.
(
1984)
Sizing up the Hoosier mental lexicon: Measuring the familiarity of 20,000 words.
Research on Speech Perception Progress Report, 101, 357–376.
Olson, D. J.
(
2013)
Bilingual language switching and selection at the phonetic level: Asymmetrical transfer in VOT production.
Journal of Phonetics, 411, 407–420.
Pallier, C., Colome´, A., and Sebastián-Gallés, N.
(
2001)
The influence of native-language phonology on lexical access: Exemplar-based versus abstract lexical entries.
Psychological Science, 121, 445–449.
Sebastián-Gallés, N., Echeverría, S., and Bosch, L.
(
2005)
The influence of initial exposure on lexical representation: Comparing early and simultaneous bilinguals.
Journal of Memory and Language, 521, 240–255.
Shattuck-Hufnagel, S.
(
1992)
The role of word structure in segmental serial ordering.
Cognition, 421, 213–259.
Swan, M., and Smith, B.
(
2001)
Learner English.
A teacher’s guide to interference and other problems.
Vitevitch, M. S.
(
2002)
The influence of phonological similarity neighborhoods on speech production.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28(4), 735.
Vitevitch, M. S., Armbrüster, J., and Chu, S.
(
2004)
Sublexical and lexical representations in speech production: effects of phonotactic probability and onset density.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(2), 514.
Wang, Y., Jongman, A., and Sereno, J. A.
(
2003)
Acoustic and perceptual evaluation of Mandarin tone productions before and after perceptual training.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1131, 1033–1044.
Warker, J. A. & Dell, G. S.
(
2006)
Speech errors reflect newly learned phonotactic constraints.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 321, 387–398.
Weber, A., and Cutler, A.
(
2004)
Lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition.
Journal of Memory and Language, 501, 1–25.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Aljasser, Faisal
2019.
Word frequency effects in phonological retrieval in Modern Standard Arabic.
International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning 8:2
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 april 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.