Finnish Children Producing English Vowels — Studying in an English Immersion Class Affects Vowel Production

The aim of this study was to examine how earlier second language teaching affects Finnish school children’s pronunciation of British English vowels. Two groups of Finnish children between the ages of eleven and thirteen were tested. The early learners studied in an English immersion class in a Finnish elementary school while the control group attended a regular Finnish speaking class at the same school. The task consisted of twenty three English stimulus words which included the twelve monophthong English target vowels in voiced and voiceless environments. The words were repeated seven times during the task. The participants produced the words after a native model and the target vowel qualities were then acoustically analysed. Statistical analysis revealed a group main effect. More specifically the analysis showed that the groups differed significantly in the way they produced target vowel second formant (F2) values. The F2 difference was only significant in the voiced context. Closer examination of the groups’ vowel qualities revealed that the control group tended to produce the F2 values higher than the early learner group in most of the target vowels. The higher F2 values can be an indication of more frontal tongue position or less lip rounding during vowel production

Motoric training alters speech sound perception and production – active listening does not lead into learning outcomes

Accurate speech-sound perception and production are prerequisites for communication in a non-native language. Earlier research has shown that new categorization and pronunciation patterns evolve in different learning settings and that these skills can be trained with various methods. We tested the effects of two types of training protocols on the production and identification of L2 vowels embedded in a pseudo-word context. Group 1 (Producers) participated in a listen and repeat training, where they produced the target stimulus /tᵾ:ti/ and the non-target stimulus /ty:ti/ after the example in a pseudo-randomized order; Group 2 (Listeners) was instructed to count the number of targets /tᵾ:ti/ in the same stimulus train without any motoric production movements. The results showed clearly that listen and repeat training led to plastic changes both in production and in identification, while no learning effects were obtained with the listening paradigm. This suggests a significant role of motoric experience in the acquisition of speech.Peer reviewe

Phonetic training and non-native speech perception - New memory traces evolve in just three days as indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and behavioural measures

Language-specific, automatically responding memory traces form the basis for speech sound perception and new neural representations can also evolve for non-native speech categories. The aim of this study was to find out how a three-day phonetic listen-and-repeat training affects speech perception, and whether it generates new memory traces. We used behavioural identification, goodness rating, discrimination, and reaction time tasks together with mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response registrations to determine the training effects on native Finnish speakers. We trained the subjects the voicing contrast in fricative sounds. Fricatives are not differentiated by voicing in Finnish, i.e., voiced fricatives do not belong to the Finnish phonological system. Therefore, they are extremely hard for Finns to learn. However, only after three days of training, the native Finnish subjects had learned to perceive the distinction. The results show striking changes in the MMN response; it was significantly larger on the second day after two training sessions. Also, the majority of the behavioural indicators showed improvement during training. Identification altered after four sessions of training and discrimination and reaction times improved throughout training. These results suggest remarkable language-learning effects both at the perceptual and pre-attentive neural level as a result of brief listen-and-repeat training in adult participants.</p

NON-NATIVE SPEECH SOUND PRODUCTION CHANGES EVEN WITH PASSIVE LISTENING TRAINING

The difficulty of non-native speech sound acquisition depends on several factors in addition to the central role of the mother tongue sound system. Age of exposure, amount of exposure as well as the type of training provided have been shown to have an effect on learning outcomes. In addition, theories of speech perception suggest that perception and production may either be strongly dependent upon each other as to the degree that perception triggers motoric patterns as well, or that activation of the auditory system is enough for perception so that the production system remains inactivated. In order to study whether mere exposure to auditory stimulation would result in production changes, we selected two groups of Finnish learners in a two-day listen-and-repeat training protocol. Both groups were auditively exposed to a non-native speech sound contrast embedded in a semi-synthetically produced pseudo-word context /ty:ti/ - /tʉ:ti/.  While the passive listening group merely listened to the stimulus pairs without any motoric actions, the production group actively produced the stimulus words according to the provided model. We performed acoustic analyses and extracted the values of the two lowest resonance frequencies, formant 1 (F1) and formant 2 (F2) from the productions. The results indicated no statistically significant differences between the groups, neither in the formant values nor in their standard deviations. However, as a function of training, both groups showed clear changes in the standard deviation values thus indicating changes in production performances. This suggests that both training protocols have an effect on production learning, and more importantly, that the motoric commands seem to alter on the basis of mere auditory stimulation. This further suggests that the motoric system is activated even in perceptual tasks.</p

Finnish children producing English vowels - Studying in an English immersion class affects vowel production

The aim of this study was to examine how earlier second language teaching affects Finnish school children’s pronunciation of British English vowels. Two groups of Finnish children between the ages of eleven and thirteen were tested. The early learners studied in an English immersion class in a Finnish elementary school while the control group attended a regular Finnish speaking class at the same school. The task consisted of twenty three English stimulus words which included the twelve monophthong English target vowels in voiced and voiceless environments. The words were repeated seven times during the task. The participants produced the words after a native model and the target vowel qualities were then acoustically analysed. Statistical analysis revealed a group main effect. More specifically the analysis showed that the groups differed significantly in the way they produced target vowel second formant (F2) values. The F2 difference was only significant in the voiced context. Closer examination of the groups’ vowel qualities revealed that the control group tended to produce the F2 values higher than the early learner group in most of the target vowels. The higher F2 values can be an indication of more frontal tongue position or less lip rounding during vowel production.</p

The production of voicing in Namibian English stops by speakers of Khoekhoegowab

This study examines whether Namibian English spoken by L1 Khoekhoegowab speakers has word-initial stop voicing contrasts, and how they might be realized in freely produced speech. The data consists of English interviews collected from nine speakers of Namibian English. For analysis, a total of 365 words beginning with a stop-vowel sequence were extracted from the interviews, and analyzed for voice onset time (VOT). To examine the realization of voicing, the extracted words are divided into voiced and voiceless categories based on their phonological voicing in other varieties of English and their VOTs are compared statistically. The VOTs of voiceless stops are significantly longer than those of voiced stops. The results suggest a short-lag vs. aspiration contrast in word-initial stops in Namibian English and provide new information about the phonetic features of Namibian English consonants.This study examines whether Namibian English spoken by L1 Khoekhoegowab speakers has word-initial stop voicing contrasts, and how they might be realized in freely produced speech. The data consists of English interviews collected from nine speakers of Namibian English. For analysis, a total of 365 words beginning with a stop-vowel sequence were extracted from the interviews, and analyzed for voice onset time (VOT). To examine the realization of voicing, the extracted words are divided into voiced and voiceless categories based on their phonological voicing in other varieties of English and their VOTs are compared statistically. The VOTs of voiceless stops are significantly longer than those of voiced stops. The results suggest a short-lag vs. aspiration contrast in word-initial stops in Namibian English and provide new information about the phonetic features of Namibian English consonants

Listen-and-repeat training improves perception of second language vowel duration: Evidence from mismatch negativity (MMN) and N1 responses and behavioral discrimination

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of three days of listen-and-repeat training on the perception and production of vowel duration contrasts. Generalization to an untrained vowel and a non-linguistic sound was also examined. Twelve adults underwent four sessions of listen-and-repeat training over two days with the pseudoword contrast /tite/-/ti:te/. Generalization effects were examined with another vowel contrast, /tote/-/to:te/ and a sinusoidal tone pair as a non-linguistic stimulus. Learning effects were measured with psychophysiological (EEG) event-related potentials (mismatch negativity and N1), behavioral discrimination tasks and production tasks. The results showed clear improvement in all perception measurements for the trained stimuli. The effects also affected the untrained vowel by eliciting an N1 response, and affected the behavioral perception of the non-linguistic stimuli. The MMN response for the untrained linguistic stimuli, however, did not increase. These findings suggest that the training was able to increase the sensitivity of preattentive auditory duration discrimination, but that phoneme-specific spectral information may also be needed to shape the neural representation of phoneme categories.</p

Advanced English learners benefit from explicit pronunciation teaching: an experiment with vowel duration and quality

Pronunciation skills are a key feature in overall oral communication skills. Without adequate pronunciation skills language learners might be misunderstood in communicative situations. This cross-sectional study focused on learning vowel duration and quality in L2 English. The subjects were advanced Finnish learners of English, whose production was compared to a native group before and after teaching. Our results suggest that explicit pronunciation teaching made the subjects’ pronunciation of L2 vowel qualities more native-like. Both of our subject groups mastered vowel duration on a native level, which suggests that learners who are used to different degrees of vowel duration in their L1 can transfer those features into L2 even if they are used functionally differently. Our study suggests that vowel duration is easier than vowel quality for Finnish learners of English. The study also showed the positive effect of pronunciation teaching for advanced learners

Learning and generalization of vowel duration with production training: behavioral results

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a short listen-and-repeat training paradigm can be used to train vowel duration discrimination and production, and whether any learning effects are transferred to an untrained vowel or a non-linguistic sound. Similar training has previously been used to train vowel quality contrasts to young adults and children, with results showing up both in behavioral and psychophysiological measurements. Unlike vowel quality, segment duration can be considered to be a suprasegmental feature that is not directly dependent on any other acoustic feature of the sounds being trained. It is therefore plausible that it can be learned a separate skill and generalize to untrained segments, and even non-linguistic sounds. Participants were 18-30-year-old healthy adults with normal hearing,who were not native Finnish speakers and had spent little time in Finland. The stimuli were semisynthetic Finnish pseudoword pairs /tite/-/ti:te/ and /tote/-/to:te/. A sinusoidal tone pair served as the non-linguistic stimulus. The behavioral measurements employed in the study were an oddball discriminationtask for all three stimulus pairs, and a listen-and-repeat production task for both of the vowel pairs. No feedback was given. The experiment was conducted in three sessions over three days. The first two consecutive days consisted of baseline measurements for all the stimuli and four blocks of production training. The third day, taking place 1-2 weeks after the second, consisted of full progress measurements. The results show that the training did induce changes in discrimination sensitivity and production of the trained length contrasts, though not all effects remained at the end of the experiment. This suggests that while the processing mechanisms related to the processing of duration contrasts are somewhat separated from the processing of vowel quality, it seems that they can be accessed with this kind of training.</p