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Neurophysiologic And Behavioral Measures Of Phonetic Perception In Adult Second Language Speakers Of Spanish, Jaden D. Hellewell

Theses and Dissertations

Infants 6-8 months old are able to identify nearly every speech sound contrast on which they have been tested, regardless of whether that contrast represents an across-category (two different phonemes) phonetic change in their native language or not. A child's ability to identify non-native consonant contrasts greatly diminishes by 11-12 months of age. The present study examined speech sound discrimination in three groups of listeners. Adult second language (L2) listeners of Spanish were compared with native English listeners with no knowledge of Spanish and native Mexican listeners to determine if they would show the ability to discriminate phonetic distinctions that …