Junyu Wu

Topic

Perception of L3 French vowel contrasts by L1 Mandarin-L2 English learners: a contrastive hierarchy perspective

Department of Linguistics

Date & location

• Monday, May 6, 2024
• 10:00 A.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B007

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. John Archibald, Department of Linguistics, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Hossein Nassaji, Department of Linguistics, UVic (Member)
• Dr. Daniel Currie Hall, Department of English Language and Literature, Saint Mary’s University (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. David Natvig, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. George Tzanetakis, Department of Computer Science, UVic

Abstract

This study looks at the L2 and L3 perception of Quebec French (QF) tense and lax vowels [y, ʏ] and /e, ɛ/ and rounded vowels /y-u/ and /oe-ɔ/. Inspired by the Linguistic proximity model (LPM) (Westergaard, 2021), I predict that the trilingual participants will outperform the bilingual participants as the trilingual can transfer phonological features from both the L1 and the L2 to acquire L3 contrasts.

The contrastive hierarchy theory, a representational and learning model proposed by Dresher (2009) is adopted to explain the sources of potential transfer in phonological acquisition. According to Dresher, phoneme inventories are best understood in relation to contrastive feature specifications, assigned in language-specific hierarchies. In a language-specific hierarchy, features are assigned to divide the inventory into smaller binary subsets until each phoneme is uniquely specified. The selection of the features is determined by examining the phonological processes in a given language (Dresher, 2009).

The present study provides a comparison of the perceptual performance of four groups: (1) L1 Mandarin; L2 English; L3 QF (n=22), (2) L1 English; L2 QF (n=20) and (3) QF natives (NS) (n=20), (4) naïve learners (n=20). Two learner groups are at the upper-intermediate level of QF proficiency that was measured by self-rated background questionnaire (based on instructional hours and course level). The Mandarin speakers’ L2 English proficiency level was measured by IELTS (average 7.0). An ABX discrimination task (with 1500msISI) was conducted by embedding [y, ʏ] and /e, ɛ/ and /y-u/ and /oe-ɔ/ in CVC syllables ([bVb], [dVt], [sVz]) in a total of 120 trials.

The primary findings of the study demonstrate that 1) The L3 QF learners are able to transfer [±front] > [±round] from L1 Mandarin and [±tense] from L2 English to successfully parse L3 QF tense and lax vowels [y, ʏ] and /e, ɛ/. 2) The L3 QF learners, transferring [±front] > [±round] from L1 Mandarin, are able to successfully parse /y-u/ and /oe-ɔ/. 3) Lack of [±round] in the English hierarchy and the transfer of L1 phonetic roundedness cue make the L2 QF learners misparse the rounded vowels and tense and lax vowels [y, ʏ]. 4) The contrastive hierarchy theory is able to predict the ease and difficulty of acquiring these contrasts based on different types of restructuring actions. 5) The present findings are in support of the LPM (Westergaard, 2021) and the Scalpel model (Slabakova, 2017) and reinforce the importance of developing a model in L3 phonology that takes contrastive hierarchy theory and restructuring principles into consideration.