L1 Spanish speakers perception of English vowels produced by both L1 and L2 English speakers
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The Symposium provides undergraduates from all academic disciplines with an opportunity to share their research with the university community and other guests through conference-style oral presentations. The Symposium represents part of a larger effort of Iowa State University to enhance, support, and celebrate undergraduate research activity.
Though coordinated by the University Honors Program, all undergraduate students are eligible and encouraged to participate in the Symposium. Undergraduates conducting research but not yet ready to present their work are encouraged to attend the Symposium to learn about the presentation process and students not currently involved in research are encouraged to attend the Symposium to learn about the broad range of undergraduate research activities that are taking place at ISU.
The first Symposium was held in April 2007. The 39 students who presented research and their mentors collectively represented all of ISU's Colleges: Agriculture and Life Sciences, Business, Design, Engineering, Human Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and the Graduate College. The event has grown to regularly include more than 100 students presenting on topics that span the broad range of disciplines studied at ISU.
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Abstract
Vowel sounds are usually one of the biggest struggles adults face when learning a second language. The reason is that some languages like English have more vowel sounds than others; Spanish, in this case However, it may be possible that sharing the same native language could help people understand each other better when speaking the same L2. To test this hypothesis, it was examined through this study how L1 Spanish speakers perceive vowels spoken by other native Spanish speakers and native English speakers. The participants heard target words such as ‘bad’, ‘bed’, ‘bus’, ‘boss’, etc. and matched them to the corresponding written form. The control group was composed of native English speakers only. If a shared L1 background (Spanish) facilitates vowel identification, then L2 English speakers should be able to match the spoken form with the written form with close to 100% accuracy.