Second language phonology

Second language (L2) phonology is different from first language (L1) phonology in various ways. The differences are considered to come from general characteristics of L2, such as slower speech rate (Derwing and Munro, 1997) and lower proficiency than native speakers, and also from the interaction between nonnative speakers’ L1 and L2.

Research on L2 phonology has been done not only on segments (Best, 1994, 1995; Flege, 1986, 1991, 1995; Iverson and Kuhl, 1995, 1996; Kuhl 1991), but also on prosody (Archibald, 1995; Derwing and Munro, 1997; Flege and Bohn, 1989; Magen, 1998; McGory, 1997; Mennen, 2004; Willems, 1982). L2 prosody, like L2 segments, has been studied in terms of its global characteristics and L1-L2 interactions.

L1 to L2

Global L2 prosody characteristics

Speech rate

L2 speech rate are typically slower than native speech. For example, Mandarin Chinese speakers’ speech rate in an English utterance is slower than native English speakers’ speech rate (Derwing and Munro, 1995), and speech rates in a sentence by highly experienced Italian and Korean nonnative speakers of English are slower than that of native English speakers' (Guion et al., 2000). In this study, the main factor of the slower speech rate for the Italian and Korean accented English was the durations of the vowels and sonorant consonants (Guion et al., 2000). Another source of the slower speech rate in L2 speech is that L2 speakers tend to not reduce function words, such as "the" or "and," as much as native speakers (Aoyama and Guion, 2007). The generally slower speech rate in L2 speech is correlated with the degree of perceived foreign accent by native listeners (Derwing and Munro, 1997).

L1-L2 interactions on prosody

Influence of L1 to L2 prosody

L2 speech is influenced by the speaker’s L1 background. Such influences has been explored in relation to many prosodic features, such as pitch perception and pitch excursion (Beckman, 1986; Aoyama and Guion, 2007), stress placement (Archibald, 1995, 1998a, 1998b; Flege and Bohn, 1989; Archibald, 1997), syllable structure (Broselow and Park, 1995; Broslow, 1988; Eckman, 1991), and tone (Sereno and Wang, 2007; Guion and Pederson, 2007).

Pitch perception and pitch excursions

When perceiving accented syllables in English, Japanese nonnative speakers of English tend to rely only on F0, or pitch of the accented syllables, while native speakers use F0, duration, and amplitude (Beckman, 1986). This finding was confirmed in production, by showing that the excursions of F0 of English content words were larger for Japanese nonnative speakers of English than for native English speakers (Aoyama and Guion, 2007).

In both studies, the reason for this phenomenon was proposed to be related to the characteristics of the nonnative speakers’ L1, Japanese. Japanese is a mora-timed language, and because of this, longer syllable duration makes a phonological difference in Japanese. Therefore, when expressing stress in Japanese, Japanese speakers may rely more on F0 than duration, which is a critical cue for a different phonological distinction. This L1 characteristic might interfere with Japanese speakers’ perception and production of English, which is a stress-timed language and might be free of such durational restrictions.

Stress Placement on words

Influence from L1 to L2 was also found in stress placement on words. Hungarian learners of English tend to place initial stress on English words that do not have initial stress, because Hungarian has fixed initial stress and this is transferred to Hungarian speakers' L2 English prosody (Archibald, 1995; 1998a; 1998b). Spanish speakers of English were found not to stress target stressed syllables in English, and this might be due to the lack of stress in Spanish cognates and the lexical similarity between Spanish and English words (Flege and Bohn, 1989). In addition, it is suggested that speakers of tone languages (e.g., Chinese) and pitch-accent languages (e.g., Japanese), both of which use pitch as a phonologically meaningful item, do not compute stress placement in English, but rather store the stress information lexically (Archibald, 1997).

Syllable Structure

L2 speakers can also perceive some innate characteristics of the L2, which lead to different repair strategies for different phonological patterns. Korean L2 speakers of English add an extra final vowel to some English words but not to all (Broslow and Park, 1995), as in (1).

(1) Korean pronunciations of English words

The problem is that modern Korean does not have a phonological vowel length difference, and Korean speakers show their own repair mechanism for English minimal pairs that have tense/lax difference, by adding an extra final vowel to English words with tense vowels. This might be because Korean learners of English attempt to preserve the mora count of the original English word, by adding an extra final vowel to words that have two moras (Broslow and Park, 1995). The syllable structure of such a word might look like in (2)

(2) Syllable structure of English “beat” by Korean nonnative speakers of English (adapted from Broslow and Park, 1995).

Tone: L2 perception, production, and learning

L2 listeners show different patterns of tone perception in tone languages, such as Mandarin Chinese. In Guion and Pederson (2007), native listeners of Mandarin judged the similarity of synthesized Mandarin tones on the basis of both F0 and F0 slope, while English and Japanese listeners used only F0, not F0 slope. However, it was also observed that late learners of Mandarin showed similar patterns of tone perception as native listeners of Mandarin, focusing on both F0 and F0 slope of the tones. This suggests that L2 learners can learn to attend to the cues that L1 speakers use for the tone distinction.

The possibility of learning new L2 prosodic distinction was further explored in a training study on Mandarin tones (Sereno and Wang, 2007). English L2 listeners’ perception and production of Mandarin tones improved after perceptual training, and this was observed both behaviorally and cortically: L2 listeners’ accuracy of tone perception and production improved, and increased activity of language areas in the left hemisphere (superior temporal gyrus) and neighboring effects on relevant neural areas were observed.

Intonation

Dutch EnglishWillems (1982): size and direction of pitch movementsKorean and Mandarin EnglishesMcGory (1977): nonnatives put pitch accents both on prominent and less prominent words, f0 patterns of statements and questions indistinct, different L1 backgrounds showed different error patterns

L2 to L1

Phonetic Realization of Phonological IntonationDutch GreekIneke Mennen (2004): Both L1 and L2 influence each other in terms of phonetic realization of phonological intonation.

References

*
Second language (L2) phonology is different from first language (L1) phonology in various ways. The differences are considered to come from general characteristics of L2, such as slower speech rate (Derwing and Munro, 1997) and lower proficiency than native speakers, and also from the interaction between nonnative speakers’ L1 and L2.

Research on L2 phonology has been done not only on segments (Best, 1995; Flege, 1991; Kuhl 1991), but also on prosody (Archibald, 1995; Derwing and Munro, 1997; Flege and Bohn, 1989; Magen, 1998: McGory, 1997; Mennen, 2004). L2 prosody, like L2 segments, has been studied in terms of its global characteristics and L1-L2 interactions.

L1 to L2

Global L2 prosody characteristics

Speech rate

L2 speech rate are typically slower than native speech. For example, Mandarin Chinese speakers’ speech rate in an English utterance is slower than native English speakers’ speech rate (Munro and Derwing, 1995), and speech rates in a sentence by highly experienced Italian and Korean nonnative speakers of English are slower than that of native English speakers' (Guion et al., 2000). In this study, the main factor of the slower speech rate for the Italian and Korean accented English was the durations of the vowels and sonorant consonants (Guion et al., 2000). Another source of the slower speech rate in L2 speech is that L2 speakers tend to not reduce function words, such as "the" or "and," as much as native speakers (Aoyama and Guion, 2007). The generally slower speech rate in L2 speech is correlated with the degree of perceived foreign accent by native listeners (Derwing and Munro, 1997).

L1-L2 interactions on prosody

Influence of L1 to L2 prosody

L2 speech is influenced by the speaker’s L1 background. Such influences has been explored in relation to many prosodic features, such as pitch perception and pitch excursion (Beckman, 1986; Aoyama and Guion, 2007), stress placement (Archibald, 1995, 1998a, 1998b; Flege and Bohn, 1989; Archibald, 1997), syllable structure (Broselow and Park, 1995; Broslow, 1988; Eckman, 1991), and tone (Sereno and Wang, 2007; Guion and Pederson, 2007).

Pitch perception and pitch excursions

When perceiving accented syllables in English, Japanese nonnative speakers of English tend to rely only on F0, or pitch of the accented syllables, while native speakers use F0, duration, and amplitude (Beckman, 1986). This finding was confirmed in production, by showing that the excursions of F0 of English content words were larger for Japanese nonnative speakers of English than for native English speakers (Aoyama and Guion, 2007).

In both studies, the reason for this phenomenon was proposed to be related to the characteristics of the nonnative speakers’ L1, Japanese. Japanese is a mora-timed language, and because of this, longer syllable duration makes a phonological difference in Japanese. Therefore, when expressing stress in Japanese, Japanese speakers may rely more on F0 than duration, which is a critical cue for a different phonological distinction. This L1 characteristic might interfere with Japanese speakers’ perception and production of English, which is a stress-timed language and might be free of such durational restrictions.

Stress Placement on words

Influence from L1 to L2 was also found in stress placement on words. Hungarian learners of English tend to place initial stress on English words that do not have initial stress, because Hungarian has fixed initial stress and this is transferred to Hungarian speakers' L2 English prosody (Archibald, 1995; 1998a; 1998b). Spanish speakers of English were found not to stress target stressed syllables in English, and this might be due to the lack of stress in Spanish cognates and the lexical similarity between Spanish and English words (Flege and Bohn, 1989). In addition, it is suggested that speakers of tone languages (e.g., Chinese) and pitch-accent languages (e.g., Japanese), both of which use pitch as a phonologically meaningful item, do not compute stress placement in English, but rather store the stress information lexically (Archibald, 1997).

Syllable Structure

L2 speakers can also perceive some innate characteristics of the L2, which lead to different repair strategies for different phonological patterns. Korean L2 speakers of English add an extra final vowel to some English words but not to all (Broslow and Park, 1995), as in (1).

(1) Korean pronunciations of English words

The problem is that modern Korean does not have a phonological vowel length difference, and Korean speakers show their own repair mechanism for English minimal pairs that have tense/lax difference, by adding an extra final vowel to English words with tense vowels. This might be because Korean learners of English attempt to preserve the mora count of the original English word, by adding an extra final vowel to words that have two moras (Broslow and Park, 1995). The syllable structure of such a word might look like in (2)

(2) Syllable structure of English “beat” by Korean nonnative speakers of English (adapted from Broslow and Park, 1995).

Tone: L2 perception, production, and learning

L2 listeners show different patterns of tone perception in tone languages, such as Mandarin Chinese. In Guion and Pederson (2007), native listeners of Mandarin judged the similarity of synthesized Mandarin tones on the basis of both F0 and F0 slope, while English and Japanese listeners used only F0, not F0 slope. However, it was also observed that late learners of Mandarin showed similar patterns of tone perception as native listeners of Mandarin, focusing on both F0 and F0 slope of the tones. This suggests that L2 learners can learn to attend to the cues that L1 speakers use for the tone distinction.

The possibility of learning new L2 prosodic distinction was further explored in a training study on Mandarin tones (Sereno and Wang, 2007). English L2 listeners’ perception and production of Mandarin tones improved after perceptual training, and this was observed both behaviorally and cortically: L2 listeners’ accuracy of tone perception and production improved, and increased activity of language areas in the left hemisphere (superior temporal gyrus) and neighboring effects on relevant neural areas were observed.

References

* Aoyama, K. & Guion, S. G. (2007). Prosody in second language acquisition: Acoustic Analyses of duration and F0 range. In * * * Bohn, O.-S. & Munro, M. J. (Eds.), Lanugage experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp. 282-297). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* Archibald, J. (1995). The acquisition of stress. In J. Archibald (Ed.), Phonological acquisition and phonological theory (pp. 81-109). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
* Archibald, J. (1997). The acquisition of English stress by speakers of tone languages: Lexical storage versus computation. Linguistics, 35, 167-181.
* Archibald, J. (1998a). Metrical parameters and lexical dependency: Acquiring L2 stress. In S. Flynn & G. Martohardjono (eds.), The generative study of second language acquisition (Vol. 14, pp. 279-301). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
* Archibald, L. (1998b) Second language phonology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* Beckman, M. E. (1986). Stress and non-stress accent. Dordrecht, Holland: Foris.
* Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 171-204). Timonium, MD: York Press.
* Broslow, E., & Park, H.-B. (1995). Mora conservation in second language prosody. In J. Archibald (Ed.), Phonological acquisition and phonological theory (pp. 81-109). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.*
* Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (1997). Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 1-16.
* Eckman, F. (1991). The structural conformity hypothesis and the acquisition of consonant clusters in the interlanguage of ESL learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 23-41.
* Flege, J. E. (1991). 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, 89, 395-411.
* Flege, J. E., & Bohn, O.-S. (1989). An instrumental study of vowel reduction and stress placement in Spanish-accented English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 11, 35-62.
* Guion, S. G. & Pederson, E. (2007). Investigating the role of attention in phonetic learning. In Bohn, O.-S. & Munro, M. J. (Eds.), Lanugage experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp. 57-78). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., Liu, S. H., & Yeni-Komshian, G. H. (2000). Age of learning effects on the duration of sentences produced in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 205-228.
* Kuhl, P. K. (1991). Human adults and human infants show a “perceptual magnet effect” for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not. perception & Psychophysics, 50, 93-107.
* Magen, I. (1998). The perception of foreign-accented speech. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 381-400.
* McGory, J. T. (1997). Acquisition of intonational prominence in English by Seoul Korean and Mandarin Chinese speakers. Unpublished Ph.D., Ohio State University.
* Mennen, I. (2004). Bi-directional interference in the intonation of Dutch speakers of Greek. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 543-563.
* Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1995). Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech. Language and Speech, 38, 289-306.
* Sereno, J. A. & Wang, Y. (2007). Behavioral and cortical effects of learning a second language: The acquisition of tone. In Bohn, O.-S. & Munro, M. J. (Eds.), Lanugage experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp. 241-258). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.