Revisiting the link between second-language sound identification and word recognition with an eye on methodological similarity
This study revisits the relationship between second-language (L2) learners' ability to distinguish sounds in non-native phonological contrasts and to recognize spoken words when recognition depends on these sounds, while addressing the role of methodological similarity. Bilingual Catalan/Spanis...
| Autores: | , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:320421 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/320421 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1017/S0272263125101113 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | L2 phonology Second language learning Sound identification Speech perception Spoken word recognition |
| Sumario: | This study revisits the relationship between second-language (L2) learners' ability to distinguish sounds in non-native phonological contrasts and to recognize spoken words when recognition depends on these sounds, while addressing the role of methodological similarity. Bilingual Catalan/Spanish learners of English were tested on the identification of two vowel contrasts (VI) of diverging difficulty, /i/-// (difficult) and //-/æ/ (easy), in monosyllabic minimal pairs, and on their recognition of the same pairs in a word-picture matching task (WPM). Learners performed substantially better with /i/-// in VI than in WPM, and individual scores were only weakly correlated. By replicating previous findings through a more symmetrical design, we show that an account of prior work rooted in methodological dissimilarity is improbable and provide additional support for the claim that accuracy in sound identification does not guarantee improvements in word recognition. This has implications for our understanding of L2-speech acquisition and L2 pronunciation training. |
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