ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS OF THE PRODUCTION OF UNSTRESSED ENGLISH VOWELS BY EARLY AND LATE KOREAN AND JAPANESE BILINGUALS

• Published in: Studies in second language acquisition Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 487 - 513
• Main Authors: Lee, Borim, Guion, Susan G., Harada, Tetsuo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.09.2006
• Subjects: Accuracy; Acoustic phonetics; Acoustics; Adult Learning; Age; Age of acquisition; Attention; Bilingualism; Cognition & reasoning; English (Second Language); English language; English language learners; Fundamental frequency; Japanese; Japanese language; Korean; Korean language; Language Acquisition; Language Research; Lexical stress; Linguistic Input; Native language; Native Speakers; Orthographies; Perceptual learning; Phonemes; Phonemics; Phonetic features; Phonetics; Phonology; Pronunciation Instruction; Second language acquisition; Second Language Learning; Speech duration; Stress; Studies; Suprasegmentals; Syllables; Vowels; Korea
• ISSN: 0272-2631; 1470-1545
• DOI: 10.1017/S0272263106060207

The production of unstressed vowels in English by early and late Korean- and Japanese-English bilinguals was investigated. All groups were nativelike in having a lower fundamental frequency for unstressed as opposed to stressed vowels. Both Korean groups made less of an intensity difference between unstressed and stressed vowels than the native speakers (NSs) of English as well as less of a difference in duration between the two types of vowel than the NSs. The Japanese speakers, whose native language has a phonemic length distinction, produced more nativelike durational patterns. Finally, the vowel quality (first and second formant frequencies) of unstressed vowels was different from the NS group's for the late bilinguals, for whom unstressed vowels were widely dispersed in the vowel space according to their orthographic representations, and from the early Korean bilinguals, who substituted the Korean high central vowel. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of the phonological status of first language phonetic features and age of acquisition.This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation (KRF-2003-042-A00048) and partially supported by the National Institutes of Health (DC05132). A draft of this research was presented at the English phonology workshop division held for the 50th anniversary of the English Language and Literature Association of Korea (June 2004). The authors would like to thank four anonymous SSLA reviewers and Jonathan Loftin for their helpful comments on the manuscript.