Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Perceptual and Production (Re)Training of Allophones and Phonemes in L2 Spanish

当以美式英语为母语的人开始学习西班牙语时，他们习得类似于母语的发音可能会受到像CARO“昂贵”和CARO“汽车”这样的单词中的轻敲和颤音区别的阻碍。颤音很难，因为英语中没有颤音。在英语单词中，tap是/t/和/d/的变体，如“writer”和“rider”，但英语使用者必须学会将其作为音素而不是变体来处理。同样，学习者也很难获得浊塞音的螺旋化，其中/d/在CODO '肘'是作为一个浊的牙齿摩擦音，这是更像'th'的声音在English.本研究探讨美国英语为母语的西班牙语学习者是否可以接受培训，感知和生产西班牙语中的元音间的水龙头，颤音，/t/，和/d/对比。参加者将接受知觉和生产培训方法的培训。过去的研究报告说，知觉训练单独提高知觉和生产，生产培训单独提高两者，以及，但生产培训的研究并不局限于生产的受训者已经能够听到的培训刺激。 在本研究中，这两种培训方式将被系统地控制，以便可以直接进行比较。第三种训练方法将被引入，包括感知和生产，以发现感知训练，生产训练，或两者的组合是最有效的。本研究将使用跨模态启动和ERP数据，除了传统的任务（识别和生产任务），以评估培训的效果，这两个任务的创新使用，以确定学员不仅感知和生产的培训L2对比，但也如果他们无意识地处理这些对比，如果他们已经建立了新的音位类别，这些声音。

When native speakers of American English begin learning Spanish, their acquisition of native-like pronunciation can be hampered by the tap versus trill distinction in words like CARO 'expensive' and CARRO 'car'. The trill proves difficult because it does not exist in English. The tap exists as an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in English words like 'writer' and 'rider', but English speakers must learn to process it as a phoneme rather than an allophone. Similarly, learners have difficulty acquiring the spirantization of voiced stops, where the /d/ in CODO 'elbow' is produced as a voiced dental fricative, which is more like the 'th' sound in English.This study investigates whether American English-speaking learners of Spanish can be trained to perceive and produce the intervocalic tap, trill, /t/, and /d/ contrasts in Spanish. Participants will be trained using both perceptual and production training methods. Past research has reported that perceptual training alone improves both perception and production and that production training alone improves both as well, but the production training studies have not been limited to production as trainees have been able to listen to the training stimuli. Both training modalities will be systematically controlled in this study so that they can be directly compared. A third training methodology will be introduced that includes both perception and production to discover whether perceptual training, production training, or a combination of the two is most effective. This study will use cross-modal priming and ERP data in addition to traditional tasks (identification and production tasks) to evaluate the effect of training, an innovative use of both tasks to determine if trainees not only perceive and produce the trained L2 contrasts but also if they unconsciously process these contrasts and if they have built new phonemic categories for these sounds.