AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Doctoral Dissertation in Language Sciences Specialization in English Linguistics Several studies have demonstrated that second/foreign language (L2/FL) speech learning is a challenge to late learners (i.e., adolescents or adults) in terms of perception and production of certain non-native phonemic and phonetic contrasts (Moyer, 2013). The interaction of different factors might explain learners’ difficulties, namely age of onset of learning (AOL), amount of native (L1) and non-native language (NNL) use over time, quantity and quality of NNL input, and the interference from the L1 phonological system (Piske, 2007). The Speech Learning Model (SLM), proposed by Flege (1995), hypothesizes that difficulties in perceiving and, consequently, in producing non-native contrasts are due to the (dis)similarities between the L1 and the NNL phonological systems. The L1 sound system is likely to hinder the formation of new non-native (L2/FL) phonological categories. However, a considerable number of cross-language studies has revealed that phonological learning is attainable for late learners, and their abilities in perceiving and producing segmental and suprasegmental non-native contrasts can improve, since the mechanisms used in the acquisition of the L1 sound system remain intact over the lifespan and can be applied to L2/FL learning (Flege, 1995). Experimental studies that investigated the effects of perceptual training on non-native speech sound perception and production reported its success not only in the modification of adult learners’ perceptual patterns, but also in the improvement of their pronunciation accuracy, confirming, thereby, the plasticity of L2/FL learners’ mature perceptual system (e.g., Aliaga-Garcia, 2013; Pereira & Hazan, 2013; Wang, 2008; Wang et al., 2003). Difficulties in the perception of non-native vowel contrasts have been widely described as a significant part of the problems learners have in L2/FL phonological acquisition/learning (Strange, 2007). Therefore, the present study investigated the effects of perceptual training on the learning of three English contrasts (/i/-/ɪ/; /ɛ/-/æ/; /u/-/ʊ/) by a group of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. This set of vowel contrasts was selected due to reported difficulties European Portuguese native speakers have in perceiving and producing them (Flege, 1994, as cited in Flege, 1995; Rato et al., 2013). The English phonological categories /ɪ/, /æ/ and /ʊ/ tend to be assimilated to the Portuguese vowel sounds /i/, /ɛ/ and /u/, respectively, and no distinction between the two vowels of each pair is made, due to their acoustic and articulatory proximity. Specifically, this study investigated (i) whether a high variability perceptual training, which included stimuli with different phonemic contexts produced by multiple native talkers, had a positive effect on the perception of the English target segments; (ii) if transfer of improvement to oral production was observed; (iii) whether perceptual learning generalized to identification of new words produced…