Cross-language perception of word-final stops by native Vietnamese listeners: preliminary results on the role of specific, non-native phonetic experience

Kimiko Tsukada, Thu T. A. Nguyen, Rungpat Poengpitya

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference proceeding contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This study examined the discrimination of word-final stop contrasts (/p/-/t/, /p/-/k/, /t/-/k/) in English and Thai by 12 listeners who speak Vietnamese as their first language (L1). Vietnamese shares specific phonetic realization of stops with Thai, i.e., unreleased final stop and differs from English which allows both released and unreleased final stops. These 12 native Vietnamese (NV) listeners’ discrimination accuracy was compared to that of the two listener groups (Australian English (AE), native Thai (NT)) tested in previous studies. The NV group was less accurate than the native group in discriminating both English and Thai stop contrasts. In particular, for the Thai /t/-/k/ contrast, they were significantly less accurate than the AE listeners. The present findings suggest that experience with specific (i.e., unreleased) and native phonetic realization of sounds may be essential in accurate discrimination of final stop contrasts. The effect of L1 dialect on cross-language speech perception is discussed.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology 2006 Auckland, New Zealand
EditorsPaul Warren, Catherine I. Watson
Place of PublicationCanberra
PublisherAustralasian Speech Science and Technology Association
Pages118-123
Number of pages6
ISBN (Print)0958194629
Publication statusPublished - 2006
Externally publishedYes
EventAustralasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (11th : 2006) - Auckland, New Zealand
Duration: 6 Dec 20068 Dec 2006

Conference

ConferenceAustralasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (11th : 2006)
CityAuckland, New Zealand
Period6/12/068/12/06

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