FONETSKI FAKTORI KOJI UTIČU NA USVAJANJE VOKALSKIH KONTRASTA ENGLESKOG JEZIKA KAO STRANOG
PHONETIC CUE INTERPRETATION IN THE ACQUISITION OF A NON-NATIVE VOCALIC CONTRAST

Summary/Abstract: The study deals with the acquisition of the English vocalic contrast /e/ vs. /æ/ by native speakers of the Serbian language, in which this contrast is unfamiliar, and one of the most difficult among monophthongs to be acquired in English as L2 (cf. Paunović 2002; Marković 2007; 2009; 2012). The authors specifically address the questions of how the categories of /e/ and /æ/ are developed in the interlanguage of relatively proficient learners of English. We hypothesize that the acquisition of this contrast is a stage-like process, which starts from a complete assimilation to the category of the L1 vowel /e/, and is further developed on the basis of durational, rather than spectral cues. In order to test this hypothesis, perception and production experiments were carried out in which different durational contexts were observed.

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