Keywords
Arabic consonant contrasts
perceptual assimilation model
How to Cite
Number of views: 593
Number of downloads: 395
Abstract
This article reports on second language perception of non-native contrasts. The study specifically tests the perceptual assimilation model (PAM) by examining American learners’ ability to discriminate Arabic contrasts. Twenty two native American speakers enrolled in a university level Arabic language program took part in a forced choice AXB discrimination task. Results of the study provide partial evidence for PAM. Only two-category contrasts followed straightforwardly from PAM; discrimination results of category-goodness difference and both uncategorizable contrasts yielded partial support, while results of uncategorized versus categorized contrast discrimination provided counter-evidence to PAM.References
Al-Ani, S. H. (1970). Arabic phonology. The Hague: Mouton.
Al-Karouri, A. M. (1996). Phonetics of classical Arabic: A selectional study of the problematic sounds. Khartoum University Press: Khartoum.
Amayreh, M. M. (2003). Completion of the consonant inventory of Arabic. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 517-529.
Archibald, J. (1998). Second language phonology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Atkey, S. (2001). The acquisition of L2 segmental contrasts: English speakers’perception and production of Czech palatal stops (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Calgary, Canada.
Audacity Team. (2008). Audacity (1.2.4) [Computer program]. Retrieved from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Bateson, M. C. (1967). Arabic language handbook. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Beddor, P. S., & Gottfried, T. L. (1995). Methodological issues in crosslanguage speech perception research with adults. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 207-32). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Best, C. T. (1990). Adult perception of non-native contrasts differing in assimilation to native phonological categories. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 88, 177-178.
Best, C. T. (1993). Emergence of language-specific constraints in perception of non-native speech: A window on early phonological development. In B. de Boysson-Bardies, S. de Schonen, P. Jusczyk, P. MacNeilage, & J. Morton (Eds.), Developmental neurocognition: Speech and face processing in the first year (pp. 289-304). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Best, C. T. (1994). The emergence of native-language phonological influences in infants: A perceptual assimilation model. In J. C. Goodman & H. C. Nusbaum
(Eds.), The development of speech perception: The transition from speech sounds to spoken words (pp. 167-224). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view on cross-language speech perception. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 171-204). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., & Goodell, E. (2001). Discrimination of non-native consonant contrasts varying in perceptual assimilation to the listener’s native phonological system. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109, 775-794.
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., & Sithole, N. M. (1988). Examination of perceptual reorganization for non-native speech contrasts: Zulu click discrimination by English-speaking adults and infants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 345-360.
Best, C. T., & Strange, W. (1992). Effects of phonological and phonetic factors on cross language perception on approximants. Journal of Phonetics, 20, 305-330.
Dijkstra, T., Roelofs, A., & Fieuws, S. (1995). Orthographic effects on phoneme monitoring. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49, 264-271.
Eckman, F. (1987). Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis. In I.Georgette & S. Weinberger (Eds.), Interlanguage phonology: The acquisition of a second language sound system (pp. 55-69). Cambridge, MA: Newbury House.
Flege, J. E. (1987). The production of new and similar phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 47-65.
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 233-277). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Flege, J. E., Bohn, O. S., & Jang, S. (1997). The production and perception of English vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 437-470.
Fowler, C. A. (1989). Real objects of speech perception: A commentary on Diehl and Kluender. Ecological Psychology, 1, 145-160.
Gass, S. M., & Selinker, L. (2001). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. London: Lawrence Earlbaum.
Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Pruitt, J. C. (2000). An investigation of current models of second language speech perception: The case of Japanese adults’ perception of English consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 2711-2724.
Halle, P. A., Best, C. T., & Levitt, A. (1999). Phonetic versus phonological influences of French listeners’ perception of American English approximants. Journal of Phonetics, 27, 281-306.
Harnsberger, J. D. (2001). On the relationship between identification and discrimination of non-native nasal consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 110, 489-503.
Ingham, B. (1971). Some characteristics of Meccan speech. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 34(2), 273-297.
Klatt, H., & Stevens, K. N. (1969). Pharyngeal consonants. Quarterly Progress Report, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, 93, 207-216.
Kuhl, P. K. (1993a). Early linguistic experience and phonetic perception: Implications for theories of developmental speech perception. Journal of Phonetics, 21, 125-139.
Ladefoged, P. (2001). A course in phonetics. Chicago, IL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Ladefoged, P. (2005). Vowels and consonants: An introduction to the sounds of language. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Ladefoged, P., & Maddieson, I. (1996). The sounds of the world’s languages. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Larson-Hall, J. (2004). Predicting perceptual success with segments: A test of Japanese speakers of Russian. Second Language Research, 20(1), 35-80.
Lupker, S. J. (1982). The role of phonetic and orthographic similarity in pictureword interference. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 36, 349-376.
Nagao, K., Lim, B., & de Jong, K. (2003, August). Perceptual acquisitions of nonnative syllable structures by native listeners of Japanese. Poster presented at the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain.
O’Shaughnessy, D. (2000). Speech communications: Human and machine. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press.
Pilus, Z. (2002). Second-language speech: Production and perception of voicing contrasts in word-final obstruents by Malay speakers of English (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Polivanov, E. (1931). La perception des sons d’une langue´etrang`ere [The perception of non-native language sounds.]. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague, 4, 79-96.
Polka, L. (1991). Cross-language speech perception in adults: Phonemic, phonetic, and acoustic contributions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 89, 2961-2977.
Rochet, B. L. (1995). Perception and production of L2 speech sounds by adults. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 379-410). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Selkirk, E. (1982). The syllable. In H. van der Hulst & N. Smith (Eds.), The structure of phonological representations (pp. 337-383). Dordrecht: Foris.
Strange, W. (1995). Cross-language studies of speech perception: A historical review. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 2-45). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Taft, M., & Hambly, G. (1985). The influence of orthography on phonological representations in the lexicon. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 320-335.
Thelwall, R. (1990). Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20(2), 37-41.
Towell, R., & Hawkins, R. (1994). Approaches to second language acquisition. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Trubetzkoy, N. (1939). Principles of phonology (C. A. Baltaxe, Trans.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Werker, J. (1986). The effect of multilingualism on phonetic perceptual flexibility. Applied Psycholinguistics, 7, 141-156.
Werker, J., & Logan, J. S. (1985). Cross-language evidence for three factors in speech perception. Perception and Psychophysics, 37, 35-44.
Wright, R. (2004). A Review of perceptual cues and cue robustness. In B. Hayes, R. Kirchner, & D. Steriade (Eds.), Phonetically based phonology (pp. 34-57). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yamada, R. A. (1995). Age and acquisition of second language speech sounds perception of /r/ and /l/ by native speakers of Japanese. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 306-320). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Yamada, R., & Tohkura, Y. (1992). The effects of experimental variables on the perception of American English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese listeners. Perception and Psychophysics, 52, 376-392.
Ziegler, J. C., & Ferrand, L. (1998). Orthography shapes the perception of speech: The consistency effect in auditory word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 5, 683-689.
License
1.1 The Author hereby warrants that he/she is the owner of all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in the Work and that, within the scope of the present Agreement, the paper does not infringe the legal rights of another person. The owner of the copyright work also warrants that he/she is the sole and original creator thereof and that is not bound by any legal constraints in regard to the use or sale of the work.
1.2. The Publisher warrants that is the owner of the PRESSto platform for open access journals, hereinafter referred to as the PRESSto Platform.
2. The Author grants the Publisher non-exclusive and free of charge license to unlimited use worldwide over an unspecified period of time in the following areas of exploitation:
2.1. production of multiple copies of the Work produced according to the specific application of a given technology, including printing, reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means (reprography) and digital technology;
2.2. marketing authorisation, loan or lease of the original or copies thereof;
2.3. public performance, public performance in the broadcast, video screening, media enhancements as well as broadcasting and rebroadcasting, made available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them;
2.4. inclusion of the Work into a collective work (i.e. with a number of contributions);
2.5. inclusion of the Work in the electronic version to be offered on an electronic platform, or any other conceivable introduction of the Work in its electronic version to the Internet;
2.6. dissemination of electronic versions of the Work in its electronic version online, in a collective work or independently;
2.7. making the Work in the electronic version available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, in particular by making it accessible via the Internet, Intranet, Extranet;
2.8. making the Work available according to appropriate license pattern Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) as well as another language version of this license or any later version published by Creative Commons.
3. The Author grants the Publisher permission to reproduce a single copy (print or download) and royalty-free use and disposal of rights to compilations of the Work and these compilations.
4. The Author grants the Publisher permission to send metadata files related to the Work, including to commercial and non-commercial journal-indexing databases.
5. The Author represents that, on the basis of the license granted in the present Agreement, the Publisher is entitled and obliged to:
5.1. allow third parties to obtain further licenses (sublicenses) to the Work and to other materials, including derivatives thereof or compilations made, based on or including the Work, whereas the provisions of such sub-licenses will be the same as with the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons sub-license or another language version of this license, or any later version of this license published by Creative Commons;
5.2. make the Work available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, without any technological constraints;
5.3. appropriately inform members of the public to whom the Work is to be made available about sublicenses in such a way as to ensure that all parties are properly informed (appropriate informing messages).
6. Because of the royalty-free provision of services of the Author (resulting from the scope of obligations stipulated in the present Agreement), the Author shall not be entitled to any author’s fee due and payable on the part of the Publisher (no fee or royalty is payable by the Publisher to the Author).
7.1. In the case of third party claims or actions for indemnity against the Publisher owing to any infractions related to any form of infringement of intellectual property rights protection, including copyright infringements, the Author is obliged to take all possible measures necessary to protect against these claims and, when as a result of legal action, the Publisher, or any third party licensed by the Publisher to use the Work, will have to abandon using the Work in its entirety or in part or, following a court ruling in a legal challenge, to pay damages to a third party, whatever the legal basis
7.2. The Author will immediately inform the Publisher about any damage claims related to intellectual property infringements, including the author’s proprietary rights pertaining to a copyrighted work, filed against the Author. of liability, the Author is obliged to redress the damage resulting from claims made by third party, including costs and expenditures incurred in the process.
7.3. To all matters not settled herein provisions of the Polish Civil Code and the Polish Copyright and Related Rights Act shall apply.