Discrimination of L2 British English Monophthong Contrasts: The Case of L2 Thai Learners of English

Autor/in	Kitikanan, Patchanok
Titel	Discrimination of L2 British English Monophthong Contrasts: The Case of L2 Thai Learners of English
Quelle	In: English Language Teaching, 15 (2022) 7, S.1-12 (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1916-4742
Schlagwörter	Language Variation; Vowels; Second Language Learning; English (Second Language); Auditory Discrimination; Phonemes; Thai; Native Language; Second Language Instruction; Pronunciation; Task Analysis; Difficulty Level; Accuracy; Prediction; Foreign Countries; Models; Auditory Perception; Undergraduate Students; Majors (Students); Contrastive Linguistics; Thailand; United Kingdom + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sprachenvielfalt; Zweitsprachenerwerb; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Fonem; Fremdsprachenunterricht; Aussprache; Aufgabenanalyse; Schwierigkeitsgrad; Vorhersage; Ausland; Analogiemodell; Auditive Wahrnehmung; Akustische Wahrnehmung; Akustik; Linguistics; Kontrastive Linguistik; Großbritannien
Abstract	This article reports on the second language (L2) perception of contrasts among British English monophthongs. This study has two aims: 1) to explore the discriminability of contrasts in L2 British English monophthongs; and 2) to test the perceptual assimilation model-L2 (PAM-L2) towards the ability to discriminate British English contrasts. The contrasts considered were: /i?/-/[near-close near-front unrounded vowel]/, /ae/-[open-mid back unrounded vowel]/, /[ezh]?/-/[open-mid back unrounded vowel]/, /u?/-/[near-close back rounded vowel]/, /e/-/ae/, /[open-mid back unrounded vowel]/-/[open back rounded vowel]/, /[near-close back rounded vowel] /-/[open-mid back rounded vowel]?/, /[open back unrounded vowel]?/-/[open-mid back unrounded vowel]/, /[esh]?/-/[open-mid back rounded vowel]?/. Fifty-two native speakers of Thai who were learning English as a foreign language in Thailand participated in a forced-choice ABX discrimination task. The participants were divided between two groups -- those high-experienced and those low-experienced. The results evidence how both groups performed well on most contrasts (over 80% correct), except for /[open-mid back unrounded vowel]/-/[open back rounded vowel]/. Although the discriminability of the contrast /[open-mid back unrounded vowel]/-/[open back rounded vowel]/ was lower than with the other contrasts, the discrimination scores among both groups remained in a middle range (over 70%). No effect of L2 experience was found, thus suggesting that the abilities of both groups did not differ. The PAM-L2 was accurate in predicting that neither group of L2 Thai learners would have difficulty in discriminating the considered L2 sound contrasts. These results imply that the results gained from a perceptual assimilation task are useful in predicting the discriminability of L2 sound contrasts, as suggested by the PAM-L2. (As Provided).
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Update	2024/1/01