Picking up the cues to a new consonant contrast: Danish learners' production and perception of English word-final /s/ - /z/

The present study examined how non-native speakers produce and perceive a voicing contrast that does not exist in their native language, and which is importantly signaled by an acoustic cue which has a very different function in the native language. Danish has no fricative voicing contrasts, which in English occur in initial, medial, and final position. An important acoustic cue for the final voicing contrasts in English is the duration of the preceding vowel. In Danish, vowel duration is used to contrast vowels. In Experiment 1, Danish learners of English produced only a small and nonsignificant difference in the vowel:fricative ratio, but Experiment 2 revealed that the same learners differentiated the final voicing contrast perceptually, influenced by vowel duration much like the native speakers. The overall results imply that although L2 learners do not produce certain unfamiliar contrasts native-like, they can use L2 cues to differentiate contrasts in perception.