Acquiring L2 phonemes and recognition of their allophonic variances
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2018/09/0017/000350Keywords:
L2 English acquisition, English liquids, acquisition of L2 allophonesAbstract
Japanese speakers often struggle to differentiate the English liquid consonants /l/ and /r/, both in production and perception. However, recent studies have shown that Japanese speakers can identify the English approximant [ɹ] because it forms a new phonetic category. We trained Japanese speakers on American English /r/ ([ɹ]) and /l/, and then tested them using both American and Scottish accented English; Scottish /r/ is often realized as a alveolar tap [ɾ]. The results showed that while the Japanese speakers learned to discriminate American /r/ ([ɹ]) from /l/, they failed to do so with Scottish /r/ ([ɾ]) and /l/. These findings imply that the Japanese speakers successfully learned the specific phone [ɹ], but did not acquire the broader English phoneme /r/ and its various allophones.
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> *Note: Adjusted publication year to 2004 to match the volume and page numbers for this specific entry.*
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