engleski

Perception of English vocalic contrasts by Croatian L2 learners

In the current study we have investigated in a forced-choice identification task the perception of American English vowels by Croatian learners at an intermediate and advanced levels. In particular we focused on the pairs /I/ versus /i:/, and /U/ versus /u:/ respectively, and additionally /ɛ/ versus /ae/. The aim of the study was to establish (1) the areas of relative difficulty in the discrimination of American English contrasts for Croatian learners, as well as (2) the level of the difference between the intermediate and advanced groups. It is often assumed that new structures are more difficult and the novelty is often understood in terms of “new” for the particular L2 sounds (e.g. Flege 1995). However, the best identification has been obtained for /ae/, which shows that the novelty of the structure cannot be described in terms of segments (e.g. de Jong et al. 2007, Kabak 2004, etc.). Further, substantial differences in the identification of the two pairs of high vowels indicate the importance of the phonetic cues (such as, for instance, the value of formants) in L2 perception. As to question (2), even advanced students have massive difficulty with perceiving the vocalic distinctions of English (with mean accuracy at 67-85%).

perception; vocalic contrasts; English

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