Sound perception and production in a foreign language: Does orthography matter? IDEALAB dissertation by Katharina Nimz Table of Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................... 9 2 Theories of L2 speech learning ..................................................... 14 2.1 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis .......................................................... 15 2.2 Speech Learning Model ........................................................................ 17 2.3 Perceptual Assimilation Model for L2 .................................................. 22 2.4 L2 Linguistic Perception Model ........................................................... 25 2.5 Specific hypotheses for vowel length acquisition .................................. 29 2.5.1 Feature Hypothesis ........................................................................ 31 2.5.2 Desensitization Hypothesis ............................................................ 32 2.6 L2 speech learning and lexical representations ..................................... 33 2.7 Summary: Models and hypothesis in L2 speech learning ..................... 38 3 L2 phonology and the role of orthography ................................... 41 3.1 Perception studies ................................................................................ 43 3.2 Production studies ............................................................................... 48 3.3 Orthography and phonetics in GFL research ....................................... 55 3.4 The German and Polish orthographic systems ..................................... 58 3.4.1 German orthography and the marking of vowel length ................. 58 3.4.1.1 Marking of long vowels .............................................................. 59 3.4.1.2 Marking of short vowels ............................................................. 62 3.4.2 Polish orthography ........................................................................ 63 4 The German and Polish vowel system ......................................... 65 4.1 The German vowel system ................................................................... 65 4.1.1 Vowel quality ................................................................................ 66 1 4.1.2 Vowel length ................................................................................. 69 4.1.3 Syllable structure .......................................................................... 72 4.2 The Polish vowel system ...................................................................... 75 4.2.1 Vowel quality ................................................................................ 75 4.2.2 Vowel length ................................................................................. 81 4.2.3 Syllable structure .......................................................................... 87 4.2.4 An exploratory study of Polish vowels .......................................... 88 4.2.4.1 Pilot study 1: Vowel duration before singletons/geminates ........ 90 4.2.4.2 Pilot study 2: Polish vowel quality and vowel length ................. 94 5 Experiment 1: Discrimination ...................................................... 97 5.1 Hypotheses ........................................................................................... 98 5.2 Participants ......................................................................................... 99 5.2.1 Polish group .................................................................................. 99 5.2.2 German group ............................................................................. 100 5.3 Experimental design ........................................................................... 101 5.3.1 Stimuli manipulation ................................................................... 102 5.3.2 Experimental conditions .............................................................. 103 5.3.3 Procedure .................................................................................... 104 5.4 Results ............................................................................................... 105 5.5 Discussion .......................................................................................... 110 6 Experiment 2: Production .......................................................... 114 6.1 Hypotheses ......................................................................................... 114 6.1.1 Vowel length ............................................................................... 114 6.1.2 Vowel quality .............................................................................. 116 6.2 Participants ....................................................................................... 117 2 6.3 Experimental items and conditions .................................................... 118 6.4 Procedure ........................................................................................... 121 6.5 Acoustic analysis ................................................................................ 121 6.6 Results ............................................................................................... 122 6.6.1 Vowel length ............................................................................... 123 6.6.1.1 Long vowels .............................................................................. 124 6.6.1.2 Short vowels ............................................................................. 133 6.6.1.3 Discussion ................................................................................ 136 6.6.2 Vowel quality .............................................................................. 138 6.6.2.1 Descriptive comparison of German and Polish vowels ............. 138 6.6.2.2 Statistical analysis of female vowel qualities ............................ 141 6.6.2.3 Discussion ................................................................................ 144 6.7 Synopsis ............................................................................................. 147 7 Experiment 3: Identification ...................................................... 149 7.1 Hypotheses ......................................................................................... 149 7.2 Participants ....................................................................................... 151 7.3 Experimental design ........................................................................... 151 7.3.1 Stimuli manipulation ................................................................... 151 7.3.2 Experimental conditions .............................................................. 153 7.3.3 Procedure .................................................................................... 153 7.4 Results ............................................................................................... 154 7.4.1 Accuracy data ............................................................................. 154 7.4.1.1 Summary .................................................................................. 158 7.4.2 Reaction times ............................................................................. 159 7.4.2.1 Summary .................................................................................. 162 7.5 Discussion .......................................................................................... 163 3 8 Triangulation: Discrimination, production, identification .......... 166 8.1 Overall summary and discussion ........................................................ 167 8.2 Relevance for the foreign language classroom .................................... 173 8.3 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 175 References ....................................................................................... 178 Appendix ......................................................................................... 197 Appendix I: International Phonetic Alphabet ................................................. 198 Appendix II: Polish test words ........................................................................ 199 Appendix III: Segmentation criteria for vowels ............................................... 200 Appendix IV: German and Polish participants ............................................... 201 Appendix V: Writing task including familiarity ratings .................................. 203 Appendix VI: Orthography task including metalinguistic questions ............... 205 4 Figures Figure 1: German vowel quadrilateral ............................................................. 67 Figure 2: Polish vowels quadrilateral ............................................................. 75 Figure 3: Acoustic comparison of the Polish and German vowels ................... 77 Figure 4: Distribution of single and double articulations of Polish geminates in the pilot study ................................................................................................... 90 Figure 5: Duration of singleton versus geminate consonants in Polish ............ 91 Figure 6: Duration of vowels before singleton and geminate consonants ......... 92 Figure 7: Vowel duration as a function of realisation ...................................... 93 Figure 8: Formant frequencies for each token of the data set ......................... 95 Figure 9: Mean formant frequencies of Polish vowels by context ...................