Flege, J. E., Takagi, N., & Mann, V. (1996). Lexical familiarity and English-language experience affect Japanese adults’ perception of /ɹ/ and /l/. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 99(2), 1161-1173.
Presentation: Sally
Summary: Roger
English /ɹ/ and /l/ are often misidentified by Japanese speakers who learn English in adulthood due to the fact that Japanese does not contain liquid consonants assembling English /ɹ/ or /l/. Japanese speakers’ misidentifications of English liquids might also be attributed partly to lexical factors. Previous studies found that inexperienced Japanese (IJ) subjects are more likely to misidentify liquids in a nonword that has a real word minimal pair than a real word that is minimally paired with another real word. One aim of this study was to determine whether experienced Japanese (EJ) subjects could identify word-initial English liquids at rates comparable to native English (NE) speakers. The other aim was to assess the effect of subjective lexical familiarity on the identification of liquids. Three groups (NE, EJ, and IJ) of subjects participated in two experiments. In the first experiment, 23 English minimal pairs, including both word-word pairs and word-nonword pairs (e.g. luck-ruck*) containing /ɹ/ or /l/ in the onset served as stimuli together with seven words beginning in /w/ and /d/ functioning as controls. Subjects rated familiarity of each word prior to the experiment and then identified onsets of these words presented auditorily. Results showed that while NE subjects identified both English liquids perfectly, EJ and IJ subjects obtained lower correct scores, with the EJ group higher than the IJ group. In addition, /l/ was misidentified more often than /ɹ/ by Japanese subjects. Plot of percent correct scores as a function of lexical familiarity also showed that familiar words were identified more correctly by both EJ and IJ groups. Comparing percent correct scores of NE and EJ subjects for three minimal pairs in which the two paired words had similar lexical familiarities suggested that EJ subjects were able to identify /ɹ/ but not /l/ at rates comparable to NE subjects. In the second experiment, stimuli consisted of eight additional minimal pairs made up of one word and one nonword together with 16 liquid portions edited out from these words. The order of the two conditions (whole-word and edited) was counterbalanced across subjects in each group, and 16 stimuli were presented randomly via headphone. Results showed that NE subjects identified liquids in the whole-word condition perfectly and only made two errors in the edited condition. For Japanese subjects, liquid tokens edited from nonwords had higher scores than the same liquid tokens presented in the whole-word condition. Lower scores in the whole-word condition were argued to be the result of a negative lexical bias associated with nonwords. However, patterns of real-word stimuli were different. Percent correct scores were higher for the /l/ tokens in the edited condition than in the whole-word condition. Yet scores for the /ɹ/ tokens in the two conditions did not show a significant difference. Signal detection theory was applied to explain these findings by assuming that /l/ had a broader normal sensory distribution than /ɹ/. Still, further research concerning the asymmetry between /ɹ/ and /l/ is required. Results also showed that, for /ɹ/ alone, scores for isolated tokens edited from words and nonwords were statistically the same for both NE and EJ groups, indicating again that EJ subjects were capable of identifying word-initial /ɹ/ so well as NE subjects. In summary, the present study shows the influence of lexical familiarity on the identification of English liquids /ɹ/ and /l/ which often sound ambiguous for native Japanese speakers. However, for /ɹ/, EJ speakers show ability to identify it at rates comparable to NE speakers when lexical factors are not relevant. Questions regarding the mechanisms of how lexical familiarity affects perception and how Japanese subjects’ perception of English liquids changes with more experience with English are yet to be answered satisfactorily.
English /ɹ/ and /l/ are often misidentified by Japanese speakers who learn English in adulthood due to the fact that Japanese does not contain liquid consonants assembling English /ɹ/ or /l/. Japanese speakers’ misidentifications of English liquids might also be attributed partly to lexical factors. Previous studies found that inexperienced Japanese (IJ) subjects are more likely to misidentify liquids in a nonword that has a real word minimal pair than a real word that is minimally paired with another real word. One aim of this study was to determine whether experienced Japanese (EJ) subjects could identify word-initial English liquids at rates comparable to native English (NE) speakers. The other aim was to assess the effect of subjective lexical familiarity on the identification of liquids. Three groups (NE, EJ, and IJ) of subjects participated in two experiments. In the first experiment, 23 English minimal pairs, including both word-word pairs and word-nonword pairs (e.g. luck-ruck*) containing /ɹ/ or /l/ in the onset served as stimuli together with seven words beginning in /w/ and /d/ functioning as controls. Subjects rated familiarity of each word prior to the experiment and then identified onsets of these words presented auditorily. Results showed that while NE subjects identified both English liquids perfectly, EJ and IJ subjects obtained lower correct scores, with the EJ group higher than the IJ group. In addition, /l/ was misidentified more often than /ɹ/ by Japanese subjects. Plot of percent correct scores as a function of lexical familiarity also showed that familiar words were identified more correctly by both EJ and IJ groups. Comparing percent correct scores of NE and EJ subjects for three minimal pairs in which the two paired words had similar lexical familiarities suggested that EJ subjects were able to identify /ɹ/ but not /l/ at rates comparable to NE subjects. In the second experiment, stimuli consisted of eight additional minimal pairs made up of one word and one nonword together with 16 liquid portions edited out from these words. The order of the two conditions (whole-word and edited) was counterbalanced across subjects in each group, and 16 stimuli were presented randomly via headphone. Results showed that NE subjects identified liquids in the whole-word condition perfectly and only made two errors in the edited condition. For Japanese subjects, liquid tokens edited from nonwords had higher scores than the same liquid tokens presented in the whole-word condition. Lower scores in the whole-word condition were argued to be the result of a negative lexical bias associated with nonwords. However, patterns of real-word stimuli were different. Percent correct scores were higher for the /l/ tokens in the edited condition than in the whole-word condition. Yet scores for the /ɹ/ tokens in the two conditions did not show a significant difference. Signal detection theory was applied to explain these findings by assuming that /l/ had a broader normal sensory distribution than /ɹ/. Still, further research concerning the asymmetry between /ɹ/ and /l/ is required. Results also showed that, for /ɹ/ alone, scores for isolated tokens edited from words and nonwords were statistically the same for both NE and EJ groups, indicating again that EJ subjects were capable of identifying word-initial /ɹ/ so well as NE subjects. In summary, the present study shows the influence of lexical familiarity on the identification of English liquids /ɹ/ and /l/ which often sound ambiguous for native Japanese speakers. However, for /ɹ/, EJ speakers show ability to identify it at rates comparable to NE speakers when lexical factors are not relevant. Questions regarding the mechanisms of how lexical familiarity affects perception and how Japanese subjects’ perception of English liquids changes with more experience with English are yet to be answered satisfactorily.
