Using the lens of phonetic experience to resolve phonological forms

Variations in Linguistics Experience. The papers represent major theoretical and empirical contributions that converge upon the common theme of how our perception of phonological forms is guided and constrained by our experience with the phonetic details of the language(s) we have learned. Several of the papers presented here offer key theoretical advances and lay out novel or newly expanded frameworks that increase our understanding of speech perception as shaped by universal, first language acquisition abilities, general learning mechanisms, and language-specific perceptual tuning. Others offer careful empirical investigations of language learning by simultaneous bilinguals, as well as by later second language learners, and discuss their new findings in light of the theoretical proposals. The work presented here will provide a stimulating and thoughtful impetus toward further progress on the fundamentally significant issue of understanding of how language experience shapes our perception of phonetic details and phonological structure in spoken language. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. In May 2009, the Acoustical Society of America sponsored the 2nd Special Workshop on Speech with the theme of CrossLanguage Speech Perception and Variations in Linguistics Experience, in Portland, Oregon, USA. The Workshop addressed new theoretical and empirical directions in research on the effects of experience on speech perception. Topics discussed ranged from behavioral and neural effects in adults to their development in young children. The presentations covered a wide array of types of language experience, including listeners naı̈ve to the stimulus languages, as well as those learning the target language as a second language (L2 learners), and those already quite proficient in two or more languages from an early age (simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals). The venue was designed to foster discussion and further progress in understanding how phonetic experience shapes listeners’ ability to apprehend phonological structure, by bringing together established and early career researchers whose work represents recent advances and new synergies in theory and research at the dynamic intersection of ll rights reserved. : þ1 54 346 5961.