Escudero, P., Bender, T., & Lipski, S. C. (2009). Native, non-native and L2 perceptual cue weighting for Dutch vowels: The case of Dutch, German, and Spanish listeners. Journal of Phonetics, 37, 452–465.
Presentation: Belinda
Summary: Thomas
A perception study was done to see how two acoustic cues (vowel duration and spectrum) are weighted when three groups of speakers, namely L1-Dutch, L1-Spanish L2-Dutch, and L1-German, were asked to distinguish two Dutch vowels /aː/ and /ɑ/. The experiment was an XAB categorization task on synthesized stimuli with varied F1 and duration values. Prior to the main task, all participants were played the most /aː/-like and the most /ɑ/-like token, and were asked to name each token and mention three words containing the vowel. This additional task was designed to see how L1-German speakers assimilated these two Dutch vowels into German low vowels, and whether L1-German and L1-Spanish L2-Dutch speakers were competent in distinguishing these two Dutch vowels. Analyses on L1-German participants’ varied assimilation responses showed that German listeners tended to use spectral rather than duration cues when they assimilated Dutch vowels into their native ones. Results of the XAB perception task indicated that the boundary between Dutch /aː/ and /ɑ/ is fuzzier for non-native speakers. Also, it is found that L1-Dutch, L1-Spanish L2-Dutch listeners showed similar bias towards /ɑ/ in their responses to the stimuli. It may imply that experiences with Dutch would help acquiring native-like vowel categorization. As for the results and analyses on cue weighting, it is shown that L1 Spanish L2-Dutch listeners weighed the duration cue heavier than the other two groups of listeners. It may imply that duration is not a strategy used by all L2 listeners; the difference between L1-German and L1 Spanish L2-Dutch listeners showed that native vowel invitatory, which affected the assimilation of L2 vowels into those of L1, could have an influence on the categorization strategy of L2 vowels.
