Predicting second language (L2) identification rates from first language (L1) mapping data: Similarity patterns for English and Korean obstruents in pre- and poststressed intervocalic, and postvocalic positions.
Hanyong Park, Kenneth J. de Jong · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2009
Park and de Jong [J.Phon, 36, 704–723 (2008)] found that listeners’ identification rates of second language (L2) categories can be predicted from mapping data, provided the L2 category has a high degree of subjective correspondence to native language (L1) categories. The current study examines whether identification rates can be predicted for consonants in different prosodic locations, and hence, whether the reliance on L1 categories is the same, regardless of prosodic position. Forty native Koreans identified /p b t d f v θo/ in pre- and poststressed intervocalic, and postvocalic positions, in nonsense English words, using both Korean and English labels, and also gave gradient evaluations of their identifications. The mapping data were used to predict confusion rates for the L2 identification data, finding results for prestress intervocalic consonants similar to the previous study for wordinitial consonants; stop identification rates were well-predicted, but fricatives are systematically much better than predicted. In poststress position, however, fricative identification rates were very well predicted, suggesting that fricatives were treated as “similar” to L1 categories. These results indicate that the degree of assimilation of an L2 to an L1 category is heavily dependent on prosodic location. [Work supported by NSF BCS-04406540.]