Super salad vs. soup or salad: L2 speech segmentation in L2 learners
Description
TitleSuper salad vs. soup or salad: L2 speech segmentation in L2 learners
Date Created2022
Other Date2022-05 (degree)
Extent226 pages : illustrations
DescriptionSpeech is fast, continuous, and variable. Speech sounds are connected to one another in the same speech stream, which makes interpretation of speech a very challenging task. To locate and extract linguistic information from the speech signal, listeners employ a variety of strategies. Available research in L1 speech segmentation suggests that segmentation strategies depend on the phonological structure of the language in question (Cutler, 1997; Cutler et al., 1989). Speakers of syllable-timed languages seem to exploit syllabic information for segmenting speech (e.g., Bradley et al., 1993; Mehler et al., 1981; Sebastián-Gallés et al., 1992) whereas speakers of stress-timed languages seem to use metrical stress patterns for segmentation (e.g., Cutler et al., 1986; Cutler & Norris, 1988). However, research on L2 speech segmentation is scarce. Whether listeners develop segmentation strategies specific to their L2 still remains unclear. The present dissertation investigated L2 speech segmentation in L2 learners who speak a syllable-timed language (Spanish) and a stress-timed language (English). More specifically, this study examined the role of syllabic information, lexical stress, consonant sonority, and L2 proficiency in segmentation of Spanish and English. This dissertation had four main objectives: a) to assess L2 learners’ intuitions of the syllabification patterns of Spanish and English, b) to determine whether L2 learners locate syllable onsets and offsets based on different constraints, c) to ex- amine whether L2 learners are sensitive to syllabic structure during segmentation of Spanish, and d) to test whether L2 learners are sensitive to lexical stress during segmentation of English. Spanish-English and English-Spanish L2 learners with different proficiency levels completed a Spanish Syllable Judgment Task, an English Syllable Judgment Task, a Syllable-Monitoring Task in Spanish, and a Word-Spotting Task in English. The results suggest that speech segmentation is language-specific and differs in Spanish and English, and that L2 learners transfer L1 segmentation strategies to the L2. Notably, higher L2 proficiency was shown to aid the development of L2-specific segmentation routines, but these effects interacted with available phonetic and phonological information in the input. This dissertation shed light on whether L2 learners develop L2 segmentation strategies that are not present in their L1 and advanced our understanding of L2 speech perception development. This work also informed available models of speech segmentation and spoken word recognition regarding the role of phonological and phonetic information in the mapping of the speech signal to the lexicon. The current work has implications for theories of second language acquisition regarding cross-linguistic interactions, L1 transfer, and L2 proficiency effects in L1 and L2 speech perception.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses
LanguageEnglish
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.