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English Vowel Discrimination and Assimilation by Chinese-Speaking Learners of English

English Vowel Discrimination and Assimilation by Chinese-Speaking Learners of English. Author: Lai, Yi-hsiu Presenter: 碩英一甲 M99C0102 莊舒萍 (Erin) Date: 2010/12/21. Outline. Introduction Literature Review Method Result and Discussion Conclusion. Introduction (1). Mandarin Chinese:

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English Vowel Discrimination and Assimilation by Chinese-Speaking Learners of English

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  1. English Vowel Discrimination and Assimilation by Chinese-Speaking Learners of English Author: Lai, Yi-hsiu Presenter: 碩英一甲 M99C0102 莊舒萍 (Erin) Date: 2010/12/21

  2. Outline • Introduction • Literature Review • Method • Result and Discussion • Conclusion

  3. Introduction (1) • Mandarin Chinese: (X) tense & lax vowels mispronounce misunderstanding

  4. Introduction (2) SLM • Speech Learning Model (SLM): (Flege 1995) “similar/old sounds” &“new sounds” Similarity Effect to learn to learn to master to master EASY HARD HARD EASY

  5. Introduction (2) PAM • Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM): (Best 1995) non-native perception is often filtered by linguistic experience i.e., new info. be categorized in L1 • Excellent discrimination: categorized type (C) [i][i] [] [] • Poor discrimination: uncategorized type (U) [i] [i] or [] (influence by L1) []

  6. Introduction (2) Purpose • To what extent SLM & PAM account for Taiwanese EFL learners’ English vowel perception • Phonological predictions or assimilation predictions?

  7. Introduction- rqs • 1. How did Taiwanese EFL learners discriminate English vowels? To what extent did learners of high English proficiency differ from those of low English proficiency? • 2. How did Taiwanese EFL learners assimilate English vowels to their L1 Mandarin phonetic categories? To what extent did learners of high English proficiency differ from those of low English proficiency?

  8. Literature REVIEW

  9. Literature review (1) Phonological Comparison among English and Mandarin Vowels- English • Tongue articulation: high-front[i], low-front[], high-back[u], low-back[a] • Tenseness: tense vowels [i, ej, u, ow] lax vowels [, , , ]

  10. Literature review (2) Phonological Comparison among English and Mandarin Vowels- Mandarin • Similar / familiar sounds for Mandarin speakers • Unfamiliar/ new sounds: [, , , , , ] • Marked, uncommon lax feature very difficult

  11. Literature review (3) • Phonological Comparison among English and Mandarin Vowels- criticism • Phonological predictions: Abstract phonological cross-language comparison • Assimilation predictions: Learners’ assimilation results of L1 categories (Cebrian, 2007; Lengeris & Hazan, 2007)

  12. mETHOD

  13. participants

  14. Two perception experiments • Experiment 1: English vowel discrimination • 1. Perception stimuli from two male American: [i, , ej, , , , u, , ow, , a] in [h_t] • 2. Minimal pairs: [i- ], [ej-], [-], [-ej], [u- ], [ow- ], [a- ] • 3. 50 test questions: 1) if the same: circle SAME 2) if different: write down the order of the sounds

  15. Two perception experiments • Experiment 2: English vowel assimilation • 1. perceptual stimuli (as same as experiment 1) • 2. Minimal pairs: [i- ], [ej-], [-], [-ej], [u- ], [ow- ], [a- ] • 3. 2 tasks: 1) to label each 11 Eng. Vowels as “similar” or “new” 2) transcribing each Eng. Vowels with Mandarin vowel categories

  16. Results and discussion • English Vowel Discrimination 1. English proficiency acted as a significant factor in distinguishing English • 2.HEFL& LEFL: [æ]-[] > [æ]-[ej] > [a]-[] > [ej]-[] > [ow]-[] > [u]-[] > [i]-[] 7 4 1 2 5 6 3

  17. results • English Vowel Assimilation • 1. HEFL: - similar: [i, ej, ow, u, , a] tense (categorized) - new: [, , , , ] lax (uncategorized) 2. LEFL: - similar: [i, ej, , ow, u, , a, ] (categorized) - new: [, , ] (uncategorized) C-C C -U C-C C -U U-C U U U-C U -C C-C C -U C-C C -U C-U C -U

  18. Discussion (1) • 1. HEFL > LEFL in discriminating Eng. Pairs • 2. Eng. tense-lax contrasts tend to perceived as tense • 3. LEFL: [ej] [ㄝ]([e]) [] 4. Perception saliency hierarchy HEFL: UU> UC> CU LEFL: UC> CU> CC UU> UC/ CU> CC

  19. discussion (2) • PAM fail to address 2 Qs: • (1) Why did the HEFL group perform the best in the UU pair than the CU or UC pairs • (2) What were the possible driving forces in this perception saliency hierarchy? • Ans: (a) Markedness effects (sonority scale & sonority distance) (b) Tri-dimensional model

  20. discussion (3) • Markedness effects (sonority scale & sonority distance) • low vowels (i.e. [a], [æ]) most sonority --3 > mid vowels (i.e. [ej], [ow]) --2 > high vowels (i.e. [i], [u]) least sonority --1 (Kiparsky 1982) • Minimal Sonority Distance (MSD) (Broselow and Finer 1991) • 1 : high vowels, 2 : mid vowels, and 3: low vowels EX: []- [] = 3-2= 1 ; [ow]- []= 2-2=0 • Higher MSD settings wereeasier to discriminate

  21. Discussion (4) • Tri-dimensional model

  22. COnclusion • Tense/ lax distinctions in English should be made explicit to EFL learners • Abstract phonological structures + perceptual assimilation + tri-dimensional model assist Ss in achieving competence at segmental levels • Using minimal pairs

  23. Thank you!!

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