Perception of French vowel contrasts by native and non-native French speakers

Abstract

Three native speakers of French produced, in carrier sentence context, seven minimal pairs (CV or CVC words) using vowel contrasts /i/-/e/, /e/-/ɛ/, /ɛ/-/a/, /ɑ/-/ɔ/, /ɔ/-/o/, /u/-/y/, and /y/-/ø/. These contrasting word pairs were presented in two perceptual tests: forced-choice identification, and categorial ABX discrimination (in which each word token was spoken by a different speaker). The performance of three American English groups (non-French-speaking, beginning, and intermediate French students) was compared to that of native French speakers on both tests. There were significant differences in identification and discrimination accuracy between native French and American groups. However, American groups were not significantly different from each other in identification and discrimination, despite their differences in exposure to French. Although the lack of differences between American groups might suggest that vowel perception is difficult to alter by second language instruction, more data are needed to determine whether vowel perception accuracy may be improved with further or different kinds of French instruction. Production data from the French learners are currently being analyzed to ascertain whether there is a relation between accurate vowel perception and good pronunciation. [Supported by NIH Grant MH-37924 and SUNY Research Foundation.]