Hostname: page-component-669899f699-ggqkh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T16:49:54.200Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ACQUIRING /[alveolar approximant]/ IN CONTEXT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2007

Laura Colantoni  and
Jeffrey Steele
Laura Colantoni
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Jeffrey Steele
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article seeks to illuminate the degree of position-based variation observed in the acquisition of new segments in a second language and to explain such variability as the consequence of phonetic constraints; this approach contrasts with much previous research that has used typological markedness to the same end. Specifically, it is proposed that learners will have the least difficulty acquiring sounds that involve novel combinations of voicing and manner in positions that favor the phonetic implementation of these sounds. Moreover, on the assumption that not all parameters can be mastered simultaneously, it is predicted that learners will first acquire aspects of a segment's articulation that are perceptually salient and articulatorily easier. The data come from a study of the acquisition of French by 20 intermediate- and advanced-proficiency English-speaking learners of French. Acoustic analysis of the data reveals asymmetries that favor accuracy with manner in onsets versus more targetlike realization of voicing in codas, in which devoicing exists in the input. Beyond demonstrating the role of phonetic principles in determining position-based variation, the findings contribute to our understanding of the acquisition of new consonantal contrasts by providing empirical evidence from a non-Germanic language to bear on this line of inquiry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 381 - 406
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Aoyama, K., Flege, J.E., Guion, S.G., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Yamada, T. (2004). Perceived phonetic dissimilarity and L2 speech learning: The case of Japanese /r/ and English /l/ and /r/. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 233–250.Google Scholar
Berri, A. (1998). Contribution à l'étude de la sonorité du /R/ français réalise par des étudiants brésiliens [Contribution to the study of the sonority of French /R/ produced by Brazilian students]. Travaux de l'Institut de Phonétique de Strasbourg, 28, 1–17.Google Scholar
Birdsong, D. (2003). Authenticité de la prononciation en français L2 chez des apprenants tardifs anglophones: Analyses segmentales et globales [Nativelike pronunciation among anglophone late learners of French as a second language: Segmental and global analyses]. Acquisition et Instruction en Langue Étrangère, 18, 17–36.Google Scholar
Blecua, B. (2001). Las vibrantes del español: Manifestaciones acústicas y preocesos fonéticos [Spanish rhotics: Acoustic manifestations and phonetic processes]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain.
Blevins, J. (2004). Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Boix, J.L. & Olive, D. (1987). Vocal utterances during acquisition of a third language by bilingual students. Revue de Phonétique Appliquée, 82–84, 209–219.Google Scholar
Bongaerts, T., Mennen, S., & Slik, F. van der (2000). Authenticity of pronunciation in naturalistic second language acquisition: The case of very advanced late learners of Dutch as a second language. Studia Linguistica, 54, 298–308.Google Scholar
Brown, C.A. (1998). The role of the L1 grammar in the L2 acquisition of segmental structure. Second Language Research, 14, 136–193.Google Scholar
Carlisle, R.S. (1997). The modification of onsets in a markedness relationship: Testing the interlanguage structural conformity hypothesis. Language Learning, 47, 327–361.Google Scholar
Cebrian, J. (2000). Transferability and productivity of L1 rules in Catalan-English interlanguage. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 1–26.Google Scholar
Clermont, J. & Cedergren, H. (1978). Les ‘R’ de ma mère sont perdus dans l'air [My mother's Rs are lost in the air]. In P. Thibault (Ed.), Le français parlé: Etudes sociolinguistiques (pp. 13–28). Edmonton, Alberta: Linguistic Research.
Colantoni, L. (2006). Increasing periodicity to reduce similarity: An acoustic account of deassibilation in rhotics. In M. Díaz Campos (Ed.), Selected proceedings of the second conference on laboratory approaches to Spanish phonology (pp. 22–34). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Colantoni, L. & Steele, J. (2005a). Phonetically-driven epenthesis asymmetries in French and Spanish obstruent-liquid clusters. In R. Gess & E. Rubin (Eds.), Experimental and theoretical approaches to Romance linguistics (pp. 77–96). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Colantoni, L. & Steele, J. (2005b, May). Explaining differences in the L2 acquisition of multiple phonetic parameters. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association, London, Ontario.
Colantoni, L. & Steele, J. (2006a). Native-like attainment in the L2 acquisition of Spanish stop-liquid clusters. In C. A. Klee & T. L. Face (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 7th conference on the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as first and second languages (pp. 59–73). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Colantoni, L. & Steele, J. (2006b). Phonetic correlates of voicing and cluster resolution: Evidence from French and Spanish. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Díaz-Campos, M. (2004). Context of learning in the acquisition of Spanish second language phonology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 249–273.Google Scholar
Diehl, R. & Lindblom, B. (2000). Explaining the structure of feature and phoneme inventory: The role of auditory distinctiveness. In A. Greenberg & F. Popper (Eds.), Speech processing in the auditory system (pp. 101–162). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Eckman, F.R. (1977). Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis. Language Learning, 27, 315–330.Google Scholar
Eckman, F.R., (in press). Typological markedness and second language phonology. In J. Hansen & M. Zampini (Eds.), Second language phonology. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Face, T.L. (2006). Intervocalic rhotic pronunciation by adult learners of Spanish as a second language. In C. A. Klee & T. L. Face (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 7th conference on the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as first and second languages (pp. 47–58). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Flege, J.E. (1987). The production of ‘new’ and ‘similar’ phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 47–65.Google Scholar
Flege, J.E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 233–277). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Flege, J.E. & Eefting, W. (1987). Production and perception of English stops by native Spanish speakers. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 67–83.Google Scholar
Flege, J.E., Munro, M.J., & MacKay, I.R.A. (1995). Effects of age of second-language learning on the production of English consonants. Speech Communication, 16, 1–26.Google Scholar
Hoole, P. (1999). Laryngeal coarticulation: Section A. Coarticulatory investigations of the devoicing gesture. In W. Hardcastle & N. Hewlett (Eds.), Coarticulation: Theory, data and techniques (pp. 105–121). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kohler, K.J. (1984). Phonetic explanation in phonology: The feature fortis/lenis. Phonetica, 41, 150–174.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1993). A course in phonetics. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.
Léon, P.R. (1992). Phonétisme et prononciations du français [Phonetism and pronunciation of French]. Paris: Nathan.
Lindblom, B. (1989). Explaining phonetic variation: A sketch of the H & H theory. In W. Hardcastle & A. Marchal (Eds.), Speech production and speech modeling (pp. 403–439). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Lindblom, B. (1996). Role of articulation in speech perception: Clues from production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 99, 1683–1692.Google Scholar
MacKay, I.R.A., Flege, J.E., Piske, T., & Schirru, C. (2001). Category restructuring during second-language speech acquisition. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, 110, 516–528.Google Scholar
Maddieson, I. (1984). Patterns of sounds. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Major, R.C. (1986). The ontogeny model: Evidence from L2 acquisition of Spanish r. Language Learning, 36, 453–504.Google Scholar
Major, R.C. (1987). English voiceless stop production by speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 197–202.Google Scholar
Major, R.C. & Faudree, M.C. (1996). Markedness universals and the acquisition of voicing contrasts by Korean speakers of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 69–90.Google Scholar
Muhr, A. (1980). Statut phonologique et phonétique de tr, dr en anglais: Comparaison avec t(esh), d(yogh) [The phonological status and phonetics of tr, dr in English: Comparison with t(esh), d(ezh)]. Travaux de l'Institut de Phonétique de Strasbourg, 12, 133–157.Google Scholar
Nathan, G.S. (1987). On second-language acquisition of voiced stops. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 313–322.Google Scholar
Ohala, J.J. (1993a). The origin of sound patterns in vocal tract constraints. In P. F. MacNeilage (Ed.), The production of speech (pp. 189–216). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Ohala, J.J. (1993b). The phonetics of sound change. In C. Jones (Ed.), Historical linguistics: Problems and perspectives (pp. 237–278). London: Longman.
Ohala, J.J. (1997). Aerodynamics of phonology. Proceedings of the 4th Seoul international conference in linguistics (pp. 92–97). Seoul: The Linguistic Society of Korea.
Ohala, J.J. & Kawasaki, H. (1984). Prosodic phonoloy and phonetics. Phonology Yearbook, 1, 113–127.Google Scholar
O'Shaughnessy, D. (1982). A study of French spectral patterns for synthesis. Journal of Phonetics, 10, 377–399.Google Scholar
Ostiguy, L. & Sarrasin, R. (1985). Phonétique comparée du français et de l'anglais nord-américains [Comparative phonetics of North American French and English]. Trois Rivières, Quebec: Les Éditions du Réseau U.
Pickett, J.M. (1999). The acoustic study of speech communication. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Pilus, Z. (2002). Second language speech: Production and perception of voicing contrasts in word-final obstruents by Malay speakers of English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Port, R.F. & Mitlet, F.M. (1983). Segmental features and implementation in acquisition of English by Arabic speakers. Journal of Phonetics, 11, 219–229.Google Scholar
Riney, T. & Takagi, N. (1999). Global foreign accent and voice onset time among Japanese EFL speakers. Language Learning, 49, 275–302.Google Scholar
Sankoff, G. & Blondeau, H., (in press). Language change across the lifespan: /r/ in Montreal French. Language, 83.
Santerre, L. (1978). Les /R/ montréalais en régression rapide [Montreal /R/s in rapid regression]. Protée, 2, 117–130.Google Scholar
Shadle, C. (1999). The aerodynamics of speech. In W. Hardcastle & J. Laver (Eds.), Handbook of phonetics (pp. 33–64). Oxford: Blackwell.
Smith, C.L. (1997). The devoicing of /z/ in American English: Effects of local and prosodic context. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 471–500.Google Scholar
Steriade, D. (1999). The phonology of perceptibility effects: The p-map and its consequences for constraint organization. Unpublished manuscript, UCLA.
Straka, G. (1979). Contribution à l'histoire de la consonne R en français [Contribution to the history of the consonant R in French]. In G. Straka (Ed.), Les sons et les mots (pp. 465–499). Paris: Éditions Klincksieck.
Tousignant, C. (1987). Les variantes du /R/ montréalais: Contextes phonologiques favorisant leur apparition [The variants of Montreal /R/: Phonological contexts favoring their appearance]. Revue Québécoise de Linguistique Théorique et Appliquée, 6, 73–113.Google Scholar
Young-Scholten, M. (2004). Prosodic constraints on allophonic distribution in adult L2 acquisition. International Journal of Bilingualism, 8, 67–77.Google Scholar
Waltmunson, J. (2005). The relative degree of difficulty of Spanish /t, d/, trill and tap by L1 English speakers: Auditory and acoustic methods of defining pronunciation accuracy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle.