Perception of Vowel and Consonant Quantity Contrasts by Cantonese, English, French, and Japanese Speakers

Lee, A., Shinohara, Y., Chiu, F. and Mut, T. C. (2023) Perception of Vowel and Consonant Quantity Contrasts by Cantonese, English, French, and Japanese Speakers. In: 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) Proceedings, Prague, Czech Republic, 7-11 Aug 2023, ISBN 9788090811423

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings of a study which investigated Cantonese, Japanese, English and French listeners’ ability to perceive non-native quantity contrasts. In these languages, duration is used to mark phonemic quantity contrasts to different degrees. We had native listeners of these languages listen to resynthesized Estonian nonce word stimuli in AXB discrimination and identification tasks. The stimuli contrasted in consonant and vowel quantity. The results showed that Japanese listeners, who have short vs. long contrasts in both vowels and consonants, outperformed the other listeners in discrimination and identification. However, their identification accuracy for overlong Estonian vowels and consonants was not as high as that for long Estonian vowels and consonants. Meanwhile, French listeners, who have no quantity contrasts in their L1 phonology, did not perform worse than the other groups. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: 11. Phonetics of Second and Foreign Language Acquisition. ID: 290.
• Keywords: feature hypothesis, L2 phonology, phonemic quantity contrasts.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Chiu, Dr Faith
• Authors: Lee, A., Shinohara, Y., Chiu, F., and Mut, T. C.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Language and Linguistics
• Journal Name: 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
• ISSN: 2412-0669
• ISBN: 9788090811423