ASA 128th Meeting - Austin, Texas - 1994 Nov 28 .. Dec 02
3aSP4. Effects of lexical status on native and non-native English-speaking
adults' vowel perception.
Victoria L. Michela
Lauren A. Randazza
Amanda C. Walley
Dept. of Psychol., Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294
James E. Flege
UAB
Monolingual, English-speaking adults and native Chinese (Mandarin)
speakers who learned English as a second language heard stimuli from two
``native,'' synthetic continua, in which the vowels ranged from English /(small
capital eye)/ to /i/ in the context /bb/ or /bp/. Thus the end
points of the first continuum constituted an English word and a nonword
(``bib'' vs *``beeb''); the reverse held for the second continuum (*``bip'' vs
``beep''). These same subjects also heard stimuli from two ``foreign''
continua, where the vowels ranged from English /(small capital eye)/ to a
foreign (non-English) vowel /Y/ in the contexts described above. Thus the end
points of the first continuum corresponded to a word and a nonword (``bib'' vs
*``bYb''); both end points of the second continuum corresponded to nonwords
(*``bip'' vs *``bYp''). After training on end points, subjects' identifications
of the nine stimuli of a given continuum were examined to assess whether: the
Chinese speakers, like native English speakers, exhibit a ``lexical bias''
effect for English vowels (from the native continua); vowel categories not
bounded by another native/English vowel (as in the foreign continua) expand
outward or become better defined with increased exposure to English and/or
lexical status. [Work supported by NIH.]