Vowel Inventory Size and the Use of Temporal Cues in Non-Native Vowel Perception by Catalan and Danish EFL Learners

This paper sought to determine whether L1 vowel inventory size could be a contributing factor to the use of temporal cues in L2 vowel perception. The participants were L1 Catalan (n=20) and L1 Danish (n=20) EFL learners and L1 English control group (n=7). We hypothesized that the smaller vowel inventory of Catalan could result in difficulties in discerning spectral differences and would lead to the over‐use of temporal cues (Bohn, 1995). Cue‐weighting was measured through natural and duration manipulated stimuli in a forced‐choice word identification task. Identification accuracy scores indicate that Catalans over‐used duration and failed to discern /i-/ through spectral cues, whereas Danes resorted to duration as a primary cue to a lesser extent. We suggest that this might be due to differences in L1 vowel inventory size and, as a result, experience with small‐ scale spectral differences.) The acquisition of second language (L2) vowels is a complex task. According to the current influential L2 speech learning models (Best, 1995; Head vowel inventory size and the use of temporal cues 323 Flege, 1995), the perceptual similitude between the first language (L1) and L2 vowels is one of the important predictors of how well the L2 speech sounds are acquired: more target‐like acquisition is expected when the L2 speech sound is perceived as different to the existing L1 speech sounds. In the temporal domain, speakers of quantity languages have been shown to acquire L2 vowel duration distinctions with ease (McAllister, Flege & Piske, 2002). On the other hand, speakers of languages without duration distinctions have been shown to face difficulties in acquiring vowels with contrastive duration (Nenonen, Shestakova, Huotilainen & Näätänen, 2003; McAllister et al., 2002; Ylinen, Shestakova, Alku & Huotilainen, 2005). In the acquisition of vowel quality, some researchers have suggested that speakers of languages with large vowel inventories have a benefit over speakers of languages with smaller vowel inventories (Fox, Flege & Munro, 1995; Frieda & Nozawa, 2007; Hacquard, Walter & Marantz, 2007; Iverson & Evans, 2007). This would be explained through the experience the L1 has offered to the speakers in tuning them to small‐scale spectral differences, a task that should be more difficult for a speaker without such experience. It would thus seem that language learners can transfer their L1 cue‐weighting strategies into the L2. The aim of the current study was to determine whether the size of the L1 vowel inventory affects the use of perceptual cues used to discern between L2 vowels. We tested foreign language learners of English from two language backgrounds: Danish and Catalan. These languages differ not only in the number of vowels but also in the cues that are used to discern among them. We hypothesized that these differences could lead to different cue‐weighting strategies. We selected the English /i‐I/ vowel pair to test our hypothesis. It is a very productive distinction in English (Higgins, 2013, distinguishes 466 minimal pairs) and thus important for foreign language learners to master. More importantly, it is of particular interest for Danish and Catalan speakers. Neither of the languages has a short lax vowel spectrally similar to English /I/, but both have a tense vowel similar to English /i/. Thus it could be expected that perceiving and acquiring the distinction will pose some problems for L1 Catalan and L1 Danish EFL learners. Hanna Kivistö-de Souza and Angélica Carlet 324