Foreign Language Learners Acquire L2 Phonetic Detail: Goose and Foot Fronting in Non-Native English
Foreign Language Learners Acquire L2 Phonetic Detail: Goose and Foot Fronting in Non-Native English
Author(s): Šárka Šimáčková, Václav Jonáš PodlipskýSubject(s): Language studies, Foreign languages learning, Theoretical Linguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: back-vowel fronting; fine phonetic detail; FOOT vowel; foreign language learning; GOOSE vowel; second language phonology
Summary/Abstract: Whether late learners discern fine phonetic detail in second-language (L2) input, form new phonetic categories, and realize them accurately remains a relevant question in L2 phonology, especially for foreign-language (FL) learning characterized by limited exposure to interactional native input. Our study focuses on advanced Czech learners’ production of the L2 English vowels GOOSE and FOOT. While English /u/ and /ʊ/ have been undergoing fronting, their Czech equivalents, /uː/ and /u/, are fully back. We show that although the spectral differentiation of /u/-/ʊ/ is smaller in the learners’ than in native speech, the vowels being contrasted primarily in length, even FL learners can shift their L2 sound categories towards native-like targets, or in this case, produce English /u/-/ʊ/ as fronted.
Journal: Research in Language (RiL)
- Issue Year: 15/2017
- Issue No: 4
- Page Range: 385-404
- Page Count: 19
- Language: English
