음성음운형태론연구 19집 1호 Joo-Kyeong Lee and Xiaojiao Xue

Lee, Joo-Kyeong and Xiaojiao Xue. 2013. The matched and mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (ISIB-L): Chinese L2 talkers’ production of English liquids. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 19.1. 125-153. 

This paper attempts to investigate the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (ISIB-L), focusing on Chinese talkers’ production of English liquids and its perception of native listeners and non-native Chinese, and Korean and Japanese listeners. The English liquids /l/ and /r/ produced by Chinese talkers were considered in terms of positions (syllable initial and final), contexts (segment, word and sentence) and minimal/non-minimal pair contrasts to see if these factors play a role in the ISIB-L. Results showed that the initial /l/ was significantly more intelligible to native listeners than non-native listeners, eliciting no ISIB. The matched ISIB-L was observed for the other three target sounds (final /l/, initial /r/, final /r/), but not consistently with talkers’ proficiency. The mismatched ISIB-L was found only for the low proficient talkers and reflected the L2 phonological/phonetic system of liquids. Korean listeners outperformed native listeners for the identification of the initial /r/, Japanese listeners’ identification for the final /l/ was more accurate than that of native listeners, and both Korean and Japanese listeners performed better than native listeners for the perception of the final /r/. The matched ISIB-L occurred in word context rather than segment or sentence contexts and in the minimal, as opposed to non-minimal, pairs, when the stimuli were produced by low proficient talkers. To sum up, the success of recognizing foreign accented speech depends on talkers’ proficiency and language background, context, and minimal/non-minimal pair contrast, supporting many previous studies (Bent and Bradlow 2003, Hayes-Harb et al. 2008, Lee and Xue 2011). (University of Seoul)