Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review <s> L1 influence <s> The purpose of this study is to assess the validity of the claim that native language transfer manifests itself primarily at the level of phonology. Experimentation was designed to test whether native speakers can identify distinct foreign accents in speakers of English as a second language from different language backgrounds with and without the aid of phonological cues. Written and oral data were evaluated by native speaking judges to ascertain the extent to which they could identify members of the same native language group on the basis of either phonological or syntactic evidence. The results indicate that though native speakers of English are able to identify learners from the same mother tongue backgrounds when phonological cues are present, they cannot do so using only syntactic evidence. While these data do not confirm conclusively the hypothesis suggested above, they do lend strong support to it. An examination is then made of other research data to see if they confirm the hypothesis that syntactic and phonological L2 acquisition are different with respect to the degree to which they are influenced by LI interference. <s> BIB001 </s> Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review <s> L1 influence <s> Several accounts of the human recognition of spoken words assign special importance to stimulus‐word onsets. The experiment described here was designed to find out whether such a word‐beginning superiority effect is due to a special sensitivity of the word recognition process to word‐initial stimulus information, or rather to the special importance of word onsets for the proper alignment of stimuli with word candidates. Twenty‐eight polysyllabic monomorphematic test words were selected, all having the special characteristic that their left‐to‐right and right‐to‐left recognition points coincided in the same phoneme. These words were synthesized from diphones, and, of each word, four versions were prepared: (a) without noise; (b) with noise masking segment perception in the word‐initial fragment; (c) with noise masking segment perception in the word‐final fragment; and (d) with noise masking the whole word. These stimuli were, appropriately blocked, distributed over four stimulus tapes, and presented to fou... <s> BIB002 </s> Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review <s> L1 influence <s> From being a relatively neglected area in the study of second language learning, the acquisition of second language speech has emerged over the last decade as an important research field with a wide range of approaches; the traditions of articulatory, acoustic, perceptual, phonetic, phonological, and psycholinguists investigation contribute a rare interdisdplinarity to this area of linguistic inquiry. Current scholarly interest augurs well for future theoretical advances. <s> BIB003 </s> Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review <s> L1 influence <s> After Contrastive Analysis was called into question because it could not predict areas of difficulty, it was modified into the so-called moderate version, claiming that similar phenomena are more difficult to acquire than dissimilar phenomena (see Oller & Ziahosseiny, 1970). Eckman (1977) added a very significant modification to further salvage Contrastive Analysis by incorporating markedness. In addition, the prolific work of Flege on similarity,including his Speech Learning Model (1995), has provided us with extensive data on degree of difficulty in second language acquisition. Although the bulk of his and his collaborators' work supports his claim that similar sounds are harder to learn than dissimilar sounds, there are important exceptions (e.g., Bohn & Flege, 1992). Furthermore, other researchers have presented conflicting claims and results. The importance of this chapter is that it ties together similarity and markedness in a claim concerning rate of acquisition, rather than “degree of difficulty”—a vaguely defined term. The Similarity Differential Rate Hypothesis (SDRH) quite simply claims that similar phenomena are acquired at faster rates than dissimilar phenomena and that markedness is a mediating factor that slows rate. In making its claims, it calls into question some widespread time-honored concepts in L1 and L2 studies that are poorly defined or mean different things to different researchers. Specifically, what criterion level or percent accuracy is needed for a phenomenon to be “acquired”? What does it mean for x to be acquired before y? If at Stage I, x = 40% accuracy and y = 20% accuracy, we could say x is acquired before y and is less difficult; but if at Stage II, x = 50% and y = 80%, we could say y is acquired before x and is more difficult. In light of this, the SDRH claims that we have been asking the wrong questions, and that rate is the significant factor. In the example above, what is consistent is rate: The rate of acquisition of y is faster than x. ::: ::: In L1 acquisition research, although order of acquisition has been a perennial concern (e.g., Jakobson, 1941, 1968, and current research on the minimal word involving morae), according to David Ingram (personal communication, 1998), rate has not been a major topic in L1 phonology. (Although Ingram himself [1991] has talked about gradual and abrupt rates, he says there is no explanation why these variable patterns exist.) However, because rates have predictive implications (with the caveat that any learner, L1 or L2, may fossilize at any point) and because L1 and L2 phenomena are reflected in a wide range of contexts—for example, historical change, languages in contact, and dialect variation—it follows that the investigation of rate is an important area of research for both L1 and L2 acquisition. <s> BIB004 </s> Non-native speech perception in adverse conditions: A review <s> L1 influence <s> Classic non-native speech perception findings suggested that adults have difficulty discriminating segmental distinctions that are not employed contrastively in their own language. However, recent reports indicate a gradient of performance across non-native contrasts, ranging from near-chance to near-ceiling. Current theoretical models argue that such variations reflect systematic effects of experience with phonetic properties of native speech. The present research addressed predictions from Best's perceptual assimilation model (PAM), which incorporates both contrastive phonological and noncontrastive phonetic influences from the native language in its predictions about discrimination levels for diverse types of non-native contrasts. We evaluated the PAM hypotheses that discrimination of a non-native contrast should be near-ceiling if perceived as phonologically equivalent to a native contrast, lower though still quite good if perceived as a phonetic distinction between good versus poor exemplars of a single native consonant, and much lower if both non-native segments are phonetically equivalent in goodness of fit to a single native consonant. Two experiments assessed native English speakers' perception of Zulu and Tigrinya contrasts expected to fit those criteria. Findings supported the PAM predictions, and provided evidence for some perceptual differentiation of phonological, phonetic, and nonlinguistic information in perception of non-native speech. Theoretical implications for non-native speech perception are discussed, and suggestions are made for further research. <s> BIB005
It is a long-held view that we hear foreign sounds in terms of our native language ones    : the L1 sound system acts as a 'sieve' for the perception of new sounds BIB002 . Later research has shown that this view is too sweeping and that there are other mechanisms present such as developmental and universal processes    BIB004 . Nevertheless, the influence of the L1 on L2/FL sound perception has been found to be stronger than in other linguistic areas BIB001 BIB003  and it informs most models of L2 speech perception. In this section we will analyse some of these models and examine some factors which may affect the weight of L1 influences. The best-known models of L2/FL acquisition place L1 influences at their core. In brief, they propose that, at least initially  , target language (TL) sounds are interpreted in terms of the L1 sound system and the degree of difficulty in acquiring L2 sounds may be predicted or explained according to their similarity to or distance from learners' L1 sounds. Kuhl proposed the Native Language Magnet theory  in which L1 sounds act as prototypes (magnets) in L2/FL acquisition. The prototype attracts perceptually sounds within its sphere so that differences are less noticeable the closer a sound is to the prototype. Thus, it is hard to separate perceptually L2 sounds from L1 ones if they are within the scope of the native prototype. If two TL sounds fall within the area of a single prototype, it will also be difficult to distinguish them because "exposure to a primary language distorts the underlying perceptual space by reducing sensitivity near phonetic prototypes" (Iverson and Kuhl, 1995, p. 561) . The perceptual assimilation model (PAM)  BIB005 accounts for the (lack of) discrimination of TL sounds on the basis of L2 sounds' similarity (exemplar rating) to L1 sounds, using the framework of articulatory phonology. Learners compare the gestures and timings of their L1 sounds to those of the TL and this comparison results in TL sounds being interpreted as either (i) exemplars of a L1 category varying in goodness fit, (ii) as sounds which may not be categorized in terms of the L1 system because they are sufficiently different, or (iii) as sounds which do not fall within the learner's experience of any speech sounds (e.g. clicks, which speakers of Indo-European languages recognise as extra-linguistic). PAM predicts degrees of difficulty for the acquisition of NN sounds in pairs, depending on the similarity of each member of the pair to L1 sounds. The most difficult discrimination would correspond to 'single category assimilation' in which two NN sounds are perceived as being equally good or deviant exemplars of one TL category. Flege's speech learning model  claims that the acquisition of L2/FL sounds follows three possible courses depending on whether a particular sound is perceived by the learner to be totally different (new), identical or similar to one of the L1's sounds. Identical sounds may be transferred correctly from the L1 to the TL. New sounds are sufficiently unlike any TL one so that the learner will be aware of the differences and establish a new category for them. The greatest degree of difficulty will be faced with similar sounds, since they are erroneously assimilated to an L1 category from which it will be hard to separate them. The ontogeny and phylogeny model  proposes that, during the course of L2/FL speech learning, both L1 influences and latent universal developmental phenomena become apparent together with the influence of the TL sound system and, crucially, that L1 influences decrease as acquisition proceeds. Depending on the stage of acquisition, these factors have different roles and relative importance. When learning begins, the influence of the L1 system is the dominant force. Gradually, universal and TL phenomena manifest themselves. At the end of the learning process, the TL system is dominant while L1 influences and universal phenomena are no longer in evidence.