國立臺灣大學語言學研究所
第300次學術演講公告
 

講題：L1-L2 similarity does not always help: The identification of English word-final consonants by andarin Chinese and Korean speakers

主講人：郝彥禎 助理教授
Department of Modern Foreign Languages & Literatures, Chinese Program, University of Tennessee

摘要:
This study investigates the perception of English word-final consonants /p b t d f v θ ð/ by second language (L2) learners whose native language (L1) is either Mandarin Chinese or Korean. These two L1 groups were compared because Mandarin does not allow any of these consonants in the word-final position, whereas Korean permits voiceless stops (such as /p/ and /t/). The stimuli were native productions of these eight English consonants appearing before or after the vowel /ɑ/. 41 Mandarin Chinese speakers were tested in Taiwan and 40 Korean speakers in Korea. Their task was to listen to these nonsense words and identify the consonant of each stimulus. The results showed that the two groups did not differ in their accuracy on consonants appearing in the word-initial position, indicating that they were comparable in their English proficiency. However, the Mandarin speakers were significantly more accurate with consonants appearing in the word-final position than the Koreans. When the consonants were divided into fricatives and stops, the analysis revealed that these two groups did not differ on fricatives, yet the Mandarin speakers were more accurate with stops than the Koreans. These findings demonstrate that having stops in the word-final position in their L1 may not facilitate the Koreans’ acquisition of the L2 stops. Another major finding is that, despite their L1 differences, the two groups displayed very similar confusion patterns, and not all of them can be explained by the L1 transfer. This suggests that factors other than native language experience, such as universal markedness and phonetic properties of sounds, need to be considered in accounting for difficulties in L2 perception.

時 間：2017年6月7日（三）12:30-14:30
地 點：樂學館三樓305室