Auditory Recognition of English Problem-Causing Vowels Creating Pronunciation Fossilization for Turkish English Majors

Mehmet Demirezen

doi:https://doi.org/

Original article | International Journal of Educational Researchers 2017, Vol. 8(3) 22-31

Auditory Recognition of English Problem-Causing Vowels Creating Pronunciation Fossilization for Turkish English Majors

Mehmet Demirezen

pp. 22 - 31 | Manu. Number: MANU-1712-20-0001

Published online: December 25, 2017 | Number of Views: 130 | Number of Download: 925

Save PDF

Abstract

English vowels cause major problems to Turkish English majors because Turkish and English vowel inventory do not match to a great extent. Turkish phonetic and phonological system has a significant impact on the perception and production of English individual vowels and vowel contrasts. In this respect, vowels, which carry the heart of syllables and words, fossilization in pronunciation and intonation get to be inescapable. The paper aims to find out the auditory difficulty of the order of the problem-causing English vowel phonemes for the Turkish-English majors and to determine to what rate can the non-native speaking participant distinguish such vowel sounds and match them with their IPA signs when heard in isolation within given oral stimuli. This research was designed to identify auditory perception rates of Turkish-English majors on English problem-causing vowel segmental phonemes by 39 heterogeneous pre-intermediate English freshmen majors whose basic background on English was different in a private university in Ankara, Turkey. A pre-test was constructed wherein English problem-causing vowel phonemes were used as auditory stimuli in isolation, and the participants were asked to match the IPA signs and phonemes articulated by the researcher. Since the participants had serious perception and phonetic coding difficulties of vowels in the pre-test, a three-hour teaching treatment was administrated to them. After waiting two weeks, the same pre-test was administrated as a post-test, the results of which were submitted to SPSS 20 to determine the difficulty rates of English problem-causing vowel phonemes for pre-intermediate Turkish-English majors. The rate of the order of difficulty signaled that the vowel phonemes of English inventory that did not exist in Turkish were problematic for Turkish English majors: [ɪ], with a perception rate of 66, 67% [ɑ]; with a perception rate of 48,72%, and [ə], with a perception rate of 48,72%. The results of the present study give supporting evidence to the SLM of Flege (1995) in relation to categorical sound perception and discrimination pattern.

Keywords: auditory recognition, categorical perception, IPA symbols, vowel phonemes, fossilization, phonetic coding ability [ɪ, ɑ, ə]

How to Cite this Article?

APA 6th edition
Demirezen, M. (2017). Auditory Recognition of English Problem-Causing Vowels Creating Pronunciation Fossilization for Turkish English Majors. International Journal of Educational Researchers, 8(3), 22-31.

Harvard
Demirezen, M. (2017). Auditory Recognition of English Problem-Causing Vowels Creating Pronunciation Fossilization for Turkish English Majors. International Journal of Educational Researchers, 8(3), pp. 22-31.

Chicago 16th edition
Demirezen, Mehmet (2017). "Auditory Recognition of English Problem-Causing Vowels Creating Pronunciation Fossilization for Turkish English Majors". International Journal of Educational Researchers 8 (3):22-31.

References

Best, C. T. (1993). Emergence of language-specific constraints in perception of non-native speech: A window on early phonological development. In B. de Boysson-Bardies, S. de Schonen, P. Jusczyk, P. MacNeilage, & J. Morton (Eds.), Developmental neurocognition: Speech and face processing in the first year (pp. 289-304). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. [Google Scholar]
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., &Goodell, E. (2001).Discrimination of non-native consonant contrasts varying in perceptual assimilation to the listener’s native phonological system.Journal of the AcousticalSociety of America, 109, 775-794. doi:10.1121/1.1332378 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]
Best, C. T., & Tyler, M. D. (2007). Nonnative and second‐language speech perception: Commonalities and complementarities. In M. J. Munro & O.–S. Bohn (Eds.), Secondlanguage speech learning: The role of language experience in speech perception andproduction, (pp. 13‐34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Google Scholar]
Bradlow, A. R., Pisoni, D. B., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Tohkura, Y. (1997).Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: Some effects of perceptual learning on speech production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2299–2310. [Google Scholar]
Brown, J. D. (1995). The elements of language curriculum. Boston, Massachusetts: Newbury House. [Google Scholar]
Chan, A. Y. W. (2013).The Discrimination of English Vowels by Cantonese ESLLearners in Hong Kong: A Test of the Perceptual Assimilation Model. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics 2013. Vol.3, No.3, 182-189. [Google Scholar]
Derwin, T., Munro, M. and Wiebe, G.(1998). Evidence in Favor of a Broad Framework for Pronunciation Instruction. Language Learning, 48, 1998. [Google Scholar]
Escudero, P. (2005). Linguistic perception and second language acquisition: Explaining the attainment of optimal phonological categorization. PhD dissertation, Utrecht University: LOT Dissertation Series 113. [Google Scholar]
Escudero, P., Simon, E., & Mitterer, H. (2012). The perception of English front vowels by North Holland and Flemish listeners: Acoustic similarity predicts and explains crosslinguistic and L2 perception. Journal of Phonetics, 40(2), 280‐288. [Google Scholar]
Escudero, P., & Williams, D. (2012). Native dialect influences second‐language vowel perception: Peruvian versus Iberian Spanish learners of Dutch. The Journal of theAcoustical Society of America, 131(5), EL406 EL412. [Google Scholar]
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning theory, findings, and problems.In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: issues in cross‐language research (pp. 229‐273). Timonium, MD: York Press. [Google Scholar]
Flege, J. E., Bohn, O.‐S.,& Jang, S. (1997). Effects of experience on non‐native speakersʹ production and perception of English vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 437‐470 [Google Scholar]
Göksel, A. &Kerslake, C. (2005). Turkish: A comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. [Google Scholar]
Harnsberger, J. D. (2001). On the relationship between identification and discrimination of non native nasal consonants. Journal of theAcoustical Society of America, 110(1), 489-503. doi:10.1121/1.1371758 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]
Hyde, D. C., Jones, B. L., Porter, C.L., and Flom, R. (2010). Visual stimulation enhances auditory processing 3-month-old infants and adults. Developmental Psychobiology. 52(2), 181–189. doi:10.1002/dev.20417 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]
Imsri, P. (2003). The perception of English stop consonants by Thai children and adults. Doctoral Thesis, Newark, DE: University of Delaware. [Google Scholar]
Kingston, J. (2003). Learning foreign vowels. Language and Speech, 46.2-3, 295-349. doi:10.1177/00238309030460020201 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]
Iverson, P., & Evans, B. G. (2007). Learning English vowels with different first‐language vowel systems: Perception of formant targets, formant movement, and duration. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 122(5), 2842- 2854. [Google Scholar]
Lane, L. (2005). Focus on Pronunciation 3. London: Longman Pearson. [Google Scholar]
Perlmutter, M.(1989). Intelligibility rating of L2 speech pre- and post intervention. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 68, 515-521. [Google Scholar]
Pilus, Z. (2002). Second language speech: Production and perception of voicing contrasts in word-final obstruents by Malay speakers of English. Doctoral Thesis, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison. [Google Scholar]
Pisoni, D. B. (1992). Some comments on talker normalization in speech perception; In Tohkura, Vatikiotis-Bateson, Sagisaka, Speech perception, production and linguistic structure, (Ohmsha, Tokyo 1992),143–151. [Google Scholar]
Proctor, M. (2004). Production and perception of AusE vowels by Vietnamese and Japanese ESL learners. 2004 Australian Linguistic Society Annual Conference. Sydney: University of Sydney. [Google Scholar]
Rochet, B. L. (1995). Perception and production of L2 speech sounds by adults. In TRANGE, W. Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross language research. Timonium, MD: York Press, [Google Scholar]
Strange, W., Akahane-Yamada, R., Kubo, R., Trent, S. A., & Nishi, K. (2001).Effects of consonantal context on perceptual assimilation of American English vowels by Japanese listeners.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109.4, 1691-1704.doi:10.1121/1.1353594 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]
Strange, W., Akahane-Yamada, R., Kubo, R., Trent, S. A., Nishi, K., & Jenkins, J. J. (1998). Perceptual assimilation of American English vowels by Japanese listener. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 311-344. doi:10.1006/jpho.1998.0078 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]
Strange, W. (1995). Cross‐language study of speech perception: a historical review. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross‐LanguageResearch (pp. 3‐45). Timonium, MD: York Press. [Google Scholar]
Strange, W. (2007). Cross‐language phonetic similarity of vowels: Theoretical and methodological issues. In O.‐S. Bohn & M. Munro (Eds.), Language experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp. 35‐55). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Google Scholar]

Volume 8 Issue 3

December 2017

All Articles