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From Utterances to Speech Acts

By Mikhail Kissine

"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field."

--François Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod

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Academic Paper

Title:	Age of Acquisition and Proficiency in a Second Language Independently Influence the Perception of Non-Native Speech
Author:	Pilar Archila-Suerte
Institution:	University of Houston
Author:	Jason Zevin
Institution:	Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology–Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Author:	Ferenc Bunta
Email:	click here to access email
Institution:	University of Houston
Author:	Arturo E. Hernandez
Institution:	University of Houston
Linguistic Field:	Language Acquisition; Phonetics
Abstract:	Sensorimotor processing in children and higher-cognitive processing in adults could determine how non-native phonemes are acquired. This study investigates how age-of-acquisition (AOA) and proficiency-level (PL) predict native-like perception of statistically dissociated L2 categories, i.e., within-category and between-category. In a similarity task, participants rated the level of similarity between pairs of English syllables from 1 (similar) to 4 (dissimilar). Early L2 acquisition predicts accurate within-categorization and high proficiency in late L2 acquisition predicts improved between-categorization. Our results suggest that the manner in which bilinguals learn to categorize non-native sounds depends on the cognitive processes available at the age of L2 exposure.

	This article appears in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition Vol. 15, Issue 1, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST .

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