What is it about?

When speaking a second language (L2), some speech sounds such as "s" are similar but different from your native language (L1). This paper investigates the acoustics of different variants of "s", spoken by L1 Dutch and L2 English speakers in both languages, recorded 5 times over 3 years. During the first year, speakers varied a lot in their learning curves in L1 and/or L2 or both. At the end of the 3rd year, all speakers produced the "s"s as two similar but different speech sounds.

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Why is it important?

This is a unique long-term longitudinal study into the acquisition of a non-critical phonetic contrast between L1 and L2. We studied dozens of speakers in a within-subject design, with multiple recordings over 3 years. The analysis involved automatic speech sound detection and analysis. A significant finding is that speakers' individual learning curves vary considerably, and that group averages do not tell the full story about individual development.

Perspectives

The "similar but different" speech sounds often go unnoticed when learning a new language. Yet these sounds contribute to one's noticeable foreign accent. We want to find out why and how speakers lose this "foreign accent" in their native and foreign languages. This is all the more important as more and more speakers communicate in non-native language(s). Sadly, Rosemary Orr passed away while working on this study. She would have been very proud to see the results of the "UCU English Accents" project in print, and we hope that this article conveys her energy and inspiration.

Hugo Quené
Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS

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This page is a summary of: Phonetic similarity of /s/ in native and second language: Individual differences in learning curves, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, December 2017, Acoustical Society of America (ASA),
DOI: 10.1121/1.5013149.
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