Dutch natives` perception and production of Spanish vowels It is

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Dutch natives’ perception and production of Spanish vowels
It is common knowledge that foreign learners struggle when it comes to producing the
sounds of the target language accurately. Research in L2 speech acquisition has shown that in
order to achieve native-like production of sounds in a foreign language, the learner must first
become proficient in perceiving these sounds.
Research on non-native and L2 sound perception, such as the Second Language
Linguistic Perception model (L2LP) and the extension of the Perceptual Assimilation Model to L2
acquisition, claim that perceptual similarity between native sounds and target language contrasts
predict how accurately naïve listeners and L2 learners will identify the members of those contrasts.
For instance, separate L2 phonemes can be perceived as exemplars of two different L1 sounds
(thereby maintaining the contrast through phonetic category dissimilation) or as a single L1 category
(where the contrast is not perceived by the L2 learner and the categories are assimilated into a single
L1 category)
In the case of the Northern Standard Dutch, the vowel system consists of nine
monophthongal vowels / i ɪ y ʏ ɛ a ɑ ɔ u/ with steady-state characteristics, some of which
differ in length. In contrast, the Spanish vowel system consists of only five steady-state
vowels /a e i o u/, but vowel length is not a contrastive feature. In the initial state of the learning
process for the Dutch speaker, the learner will perceive more categories than the Spanish listener, e.g.
the Dutch learner of Spanish will experience a learning problem, because while Spanish has two front
vowels, /i/ and /e/, Dutch has three corresponding categories, /i/, /ɪ/ and /ɛ/. The L2LP model predicts
this scenario as moderately difficult as they have to reduce the number of lexical and perceptual
categories. Only a few perception studies have considered this scenario, i.e. when a single target
language phone is assimilated to more than one native category, and less studies have investigated this
predictions for speech production.
The present study examined this subset scenario on the perception and production of Spanish
vowels by Dutch natives. To facilitate the learning of the Spanish vowel sound system, we
developed a computer program, Fix your vowels, which endeavours to provide reliable, clear and
useful feedback on vowel production to learners of Spanish as a second language. This presentation
will report on the perception and production of the five Spanish vowels by Dutch natives and will
demonstrate the vowel training program.
Key words: Spanish vowels, speech production, multiple category assimilation, training program.
Percepción y producción de las vocals españolas por holandeses nativos.
Investigaciones con adultos han demostrado que el esfuerzo, que con frecuencia es inmenso,
para adquirir los sonidos de los nativos no es tan fructífero como de los recien nacidos y en general la
mayoría de los adultos mantiene ese acento extranjero, incluso después de haber pasado varios años en
un entorno L2. La investigación en adquisición del lenguaje L2 ha demostrado que para lograr
pronunciar como los nativos, el alumno debe ser competente en la percepción de estos sonidos. Es
decir, que si el aprendiente percibe los sonidos vocálicos a través de sus categorías de la primera
lengua (L1), es probable que los produzca a través de sus categorías de L1, o sea, de una manera nonativa, por tanto, con un acento extranjero.
Corregir este acento es una tarea bastante complicada y laboriosa, ya que las propiedades de
articulación de las vocales son difíciles de enseñar. El propósito de este estudio fue investigar la
percepción y producción de las vocales españolas por los holandeses nativos y desarrollar un programa
de entrenamiento por ordenador, llamado Fix your vowels, que al mismo tiempo que entrena
visualizando el problema, corrige y graba el habla del aprendiente.
Los resultados de un estudio piloto confirman que el programa ejerce un efecto positivo en la
producción de las vocales. Con este programa la posibilidad de la formación y el análisis de discurso al
mismo tiempo sin el reconocimiento de voz es un paso adelante en el desarrollo y el aprendizaje de la
producción de un segundo idioma.
Palabras clave: Percepción y producción de vocales, adquisición de L2, enseñanza de la
pronunciación por ordenador, español, holandés.
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