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Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers

Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner’s first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situation...

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Autores principales: Escudero, Paola, Smit, Eline A., Mulak, Karen E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9775897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36552078
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121618
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author Escudero, Paola
Smit, Eline A.
Mulak, Karen E.
author_facet Escudero, Paola
Smit, Eline A.
Mulak, Karen E.
author_sort Escudero, Paola
collection PubMed
description Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner’s first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development.
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spelling pubmed-97758972022-12-23 Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers Escudero, Paola Smit, Eline A. Mulak, Karen E. Brain Sci Article Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner’s first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development. MDPI 2022-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9775897/ /pubmed/36552078 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121618 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Escudero, Paola
Smit, Eline A.
Mulak, Karen E.
Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers
title Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers
title_full Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers
title_fullStr Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers
title_full_unstemmed Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers
title_short Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers
title_sort explaining l2 lexical learning in multiple scenarios: cross-situational word learning in l1 mandarin l2 english speakers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9775897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36552078
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121618
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