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Faculty Publications

2008

Second language

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Child–Adult Differences In Second-Language Phonological Learning: The Role Of Cross-Language Similarity, Wendy Baker-Smemoe, Pavel Trofimovich, James E. Flege, Molly Mack, Randall Halter Jan 2008

Child–Adult Differences In Second-Language Phonological Learning: The Role Of Cross-Language Similarity, Wendy Baker-Smemoe, Pavel Trofimovich, James E. Flege, Molly Mack, Randall Halter

Faculty Publications

This study evaluated whether age effects on second language (L2) speech learning derive from changes in how the native language (L1) and L2 sound systems interact. According to the “interaction hypothesis” (IH), the older the L2 learner, the less likely the learner is able to establish new vowel categories needed for accurate L2 vowel production and perception because, with age, L1 vowel categories become more likely to perceptually encompass neighboring L2 vowels. These IH predictions were evaluated in two experiments involving 64 native Korean- and English-speaking children and adults. Experiment 1 determined, as predicted, that the Korean children were less …


Social, Experiential And Psychological Factors Affecting L2 Dialect Acquisition, Wendy Baker-Smemoe Jan 2008

Social, Experiential And Psychological Factors Affecting L2 Dialect Acquisition, Wendy Baker-Smemoe

Faculty Publications

Several factors influence whether or not second language (L2) learners are able to perceive and produce the L2 accurately. Some of these factors are experiential, such as the learner’s age at the time of L2 acquisition (Mackay, Flege, & Imai, 2006; Aoyama, Flege, Guion, Akahane-Yamada, & Yamada, 2002), length of residence in the target language and/or country (Flege & Liu, 2001; Flege, Bohn, & Jang, 1997), and amount of daily use of the L2 (Mackay, Meador, & Flege, 2001), to name just a few. While these factors most likely influence L2 learners of all ages, previous research suggests that amount …