Phonetics and Speech Sciences (말소리와 음성과학)

Korean Society of Speech Sciences (한국음성학회)
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Effects of number of letters on second language sound length

  • Received : 2024.08.03
  • Accepted : 2024.09.10
  • Published : 2024.09.30
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Abstract

The present study replicated and extended a previous research investigating whether orthographic forms, such as a single letter or a digraph representing the same sound, affect sound duration in L2 production. Results of a previous study (Han et al., 2024) showed that Korean learners produced the same English vowel with a short duration when spelled with a single letter and a long duration when spelled with digraphs. This variation in duration did not appear when producing English consonants with various spellings. However, these results may be attributable to the task type, namely the delayed repetition task, which might have prevented direct imitation from sensory memory. To test whether the overt presentation of letters shows orthographic effects for consonants as well as vowels, this study employed a read-aloud task. This study further examined whether individual differences in proficiency, measured by vocabulary size, influenced the magnitude of orthographic effects in the production of English vowels by Korean learners. The present results replicated those from the delayed repetition task, suggesting that the orthographic effects shown in previous research were not attributable to the task type employed to evaluate L2 production. We also found that individual differences in vocabulary size are not strongly related to the influence of orthography on vowel production.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

We thank Tae-Hwan Choi for constructing experimental stimuli, and Sujin Kim for subject running.

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