From phoneme to lexicon in non-native listening
Title | From phoneme to lexicon in non-native listening |
Publication Type | Presentation |
Year of Publication | 2004 |
Conference Name | Workshop on First and Second Language Acquisition |
Authors | Cutler, Anne, Andrea Weber, and Takshi Otake |
Publisher | Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen |
Conference Location | Nijmegen, The Netherlands |
Abstract | When phonemic contrasts of first and second languages mismatch, native phonemic categories can capture second-language input. This effect can have far-reaching consequences for understanding:
However, Weber and Cutler also found that the confusability was asymmetric: given pencil as target, panda did not distract more than distinct competitors. They suggested that stored representations may maintain second-language distinctions even when native phonemic categories effectively over-rule the distinctions in input processing. A subsequent experiment tests for such asymmetry with Japanese listeners' perception of English r/l contrasts. We also tested for asymmetry in non-natives' pseudo-homophony, via a lexical decision study examining repetition priming. English materials, presented to Dutch and Japanese listeners, included pairs such as cattle/kettle and right/light. Dutch listeners responded significantly faster to one member of a cattle/kettle pair after having heard the other member earlier (compared with having heard a control word), suggesting that both words had been activated whichever had been heard. Japanese listeners, however, showed no such priming for cattle/kettle words, but did show repetition priming across r/l pairs (e.g. right/light). |