Keywords

French, German, pronunciation, perception, second language acquisition

Abstract

This study investigated whether differences in cross-language similarity between English-French and English-German vowels would translate into differences in accurately identifying and discriminating French and German vowels (i.e., Iii, /y/, and /u/). In addition, this study investigated whether these same differences in cross-language perception would also translate into differences in accurately identifying and discriminating vowels in a novel third language. The results suggest that learners exposed to a language with a greater perceived difference with the LI are more able to generalize their perception of their L2 vowels to a novel L3.

Original Publication Citation

Baker, W. & Smith, L. (2007). Third Language Acquisition: Why learning French first is better than learning German first. Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Science. Saarland University: Saarbrucken, Germany.