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Title:
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Vowel Perception and Production in L2 - An investigation with native Turkish speakers (Vokalperzeption und -produktion in der Zweitsprache - Eine Untersuchung mit türkischen Muttersprachlern)
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Author:
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Kenan Oturan
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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Universität zu Köln
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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2001
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Phonetics
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Subject Language(s):
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German, Standard
Turkish
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Director(s):
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Reinhold Greisbach
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Abstract:
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In the 1960s and 70s, researchers working in contrastive linguistics attempted to explain the difficulties of learning a second language (L2) with regards to production by using the terms “transference” and “interference.” They believed that the inexact production of L2 sounds by L2 learners was due on a phonological level to differences in the sounds of L1 and L2. Interference, i.e. the negative application of L1 patterns onto L2 patterns, was generally considered to be the cause of L2 learners’ pronunciation difficulties.
In the 1980s and 90s, following the introduction of Motor Theory, investigators began to speak of a “perceived foreign accent,” reflecting the fact that L2 learners had difficulties not only in producing L2 sounds, but in perceiving them; the inexact production of L2 sounds was put down to the inexact perception of these sounds. Instead of error analysis, as in contrastive linguistics, differences between L1 sounds and L2 sounds were investigated at a phonetic level. The overall conclusion of studies from this period was that phonetic similarity between L1 and L2 sounds exerted a negative influence over learners’ perception and production of L2 sounds.
The current study is a comparison of the perception and production of six German vowels [i:, I, e:, ε, a:, a] and three Turkish vowels [i, e, a] by a group of German native speakers, and by a group of Turkish native speakers with varying levels of experience with the German language.
In the first chapter I give a brief historical overview of investigations of perception in L2. I also describe two different L2 perception models, PAM and SLM.
In Chapter 3, I review existing phonetic studies of the German and Turkish vocalic systems.
Chapter 4 describes the characteristic acoustic features (intrinsic vowel length, vowel length, F1, F2 and F0) of the stimuli used in the three listening tests that form a part of the later investigation.
In the Pretest (Chapter 6), I examine the perceptual similarities between the six German vowels and the three Turkish vowels using a perceptual experiment with Turkish native speakers with no knowledge of German. I attempt to determine quantitatively the levels of perceptual similarity between the six German vowels and the three Turkish vowels, and to predict what perceptual difficulties will be encountered by Turks learning German.
The German Listening Test (Chapter 7) investigates the perceptual patterns of the six German vowels for the three groups of listeners (German native speakers, Turkish native speakers with no knowledge of German, and Turkish native speakers with varying levels of experience with German). Using analyses of variance, I investigate which groups differ significantly in their perception of the six German vowels. In addition, I calculate the correlation coefficients between the judgments of the participants and the acoustic parameters of the vowels, so as to determine what the groups’ judgment criteria are. I also investigate the production patterns of the German vowels for five speakers (one German and four Turkish speakers with varying levels of experience with the German language) using variance analysis on the basis of the judgments of the German group, and discuss my findings.
With the Turkish Listening Test (Chapter 8) I investigate the perception of the three Turkish vowels and their differentiation from the German vowels for two groups of Turks. As for the German Listening Test, I calculate the correlation coefficients between the judgments of the participants and the acoustic parameters of the vowels, so as to determine the judgment criteria of the two groups.
In Chapter 9 I summarize my conclusions and discuss them with reference to the L2 perception models PAM and SLM.
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