Perceptual assimilation of stops by Chinese learners of European Portuguese
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.5099Keywords:
L2 speech learning, L2 European Portuguese, L1 Cantonese, Oral stopsAbstract
Perceiving and producing L2 oral stops is difficult for Chinese learners of European Portuguese (EP), namely the voicing distinction between these sounds (Shu 2014). The aim of the present study is to examine the degree of cross-linguistic similarity between the L1 and the L2 oral stops, in an attempt to shed light on the challenges Chinese learners of EP face when learning the L2 phonology (Batalha 1995; Martins 2008; Shu 2014). Eleven Macanese participants, native speakers of Cantonese, performed a perceptual assimilation task in which they were asked to identify the L1 sound that was closest to the initial consonant in CV syllables produced by native speakers of EP. The participants then rated the goodness-of-fit of the L2 sound as an exemplar of the L1 category on a seven-point scale. Interpreted within the theoretical framework of the Perceptual Assimilation Model L2 (Best & Tyler 2007), results suggest that these L2 learners do not recognize phonetic differences betweenthe L2 sounds /p/ and /b/, which are heard as equally good exemplars of a single L1 category (/p/). A similar pattern of results was found for /t/-/d/ and /k/-/g/ in the L2, although it seems easier for participants to discern phonetic dissimilarities between the elements of the stop pairs as place of articulation moves from the front to the back position in the vocal tract.
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