The role of L1 phonology in the perception of L2 semivowels

要旨

Abstract The study compares how L1 Chinese and Japanese speakers perceive L2 English semivowels (/j/ and /w/) preceding high vowels (/i/ and /u/). In Chinese, [j] and [w] serve as phonetic variants of /i/ and /u/, respectively. However, /j/ and /w/ are distinct phonemes in Japanese, although Japanese /w/ lacks the roundness feature found in English /w/. Participants completed experiments with a discrimination task and an identification task. While the discrimination task revealed no differences in /j/ and /w/ perception between the groups, the identification task showed that the Japanese speakers outperformed the Chinese speakers in their perception of /j/, suggesting an L1 “phonemic over phonetic” advantage. However, the Japanese speakers did not outperform the Chinese speakers in their perception of /w/, suggesting that an L2 feature unexploited in the L1 (i.e., roundness) can impede perception. These findings underscore the importance of considering both phonemic status and features in L2 speech perception.

主題