Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Do Learners Overcome Native Language Interference in Second Language Speech?

第二语言学习者在新奇音位对比方面所面临的困难是有据可查的，主要归因于母语的影响(例如，在日语和阿拉伯语中，Singleton/t/和Gemate/tt/之间的对比对于以英语为母语的人来说是困难的，因为/t/和/tt/在英语中不具有对比性)。然而，对于学习者可以用来提高他们感知这种反差的能力的证据的性质，我们还知之甚少。在迈克尔·哈蒙德博士的指导下，在NSF的支持下，雷切尔·海斯女士将为她的博士论文研究第二语言音位对比的习得。这项研究包括训练单语英语使用者在一种新的语言中感知新的音素对比，然后测试他们感知音素差异的能力和他们在包含对比音素的新语言中学习词汇的能力。这项研究对言语感知、第二语言习得和第二语言教学领域都有重要意义。更充分地理解听者可以用来学习新奇第二语言语音对比的证据类型，最终可能有助于改进教学技巧，帮助成年人克服最初在感知新奇第二语言音位对比方面的困难。

The difficulties faced by second language learners with respect to novel phoneme contrasts are well-documented and are primarily attributed to the influence of the native language (e.g., the contrast between singleton /t/ and geminate /tt/ in languages like Japanese and Arabic is difficult for native speakers of English because /t/ and /tt/ are not contrastive in English). However, little is yet known about the nature of the evidence that learners can use to improve their ability to perceive such contrasts. Under the direction of Dr. Michael Hammond, and with NSF support, Ms. Rachel Hayes will study the acquisition of second language phoneme contrasts for her doctoral dissertation. The research involves training monolingual English speakers to perceive novel phoneme contrasts in a language that is new to them, and then testing participants on both their ability to perceive the difference between the phonemes and their ability to learn vocabulary in the new language that contains the contrasting phonemes.This research is significant for the fields of speech perception, second language acquisition, and second language pedagogy. A fuller understanding of the types of evidence that listeners can make use of to learn novel second language sound contrasts may ultimately contribute to improved pedagogical techniques for helping adults overcome their initial difficulties in perceiving novel second language phoneme contrasts.