An acoustic analysis of French vowel phoneme substitutions in native English speakers

Abstract

In the last 60 years of second language acquisition research, much has changed from the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) and the belief from Eric Lenneberg that producing second language vowels and consonants was too tricky without a first language accent (Harley, 1997). These casual remarks and observations would set in motion further extensions of CPH to help focus equal attention on second language learning. It would not be until 1987 and research conducted by Jim Flege that the world would begin to see how American college students can produce and differentiate between the close fronted /y/ and its back closed counterpart /u/ (Flege, 2005). Flege would conclude through his experiment that second language learners (L2) of French had an easier time producing a “new” vowel or vowel that is absent from their first language (L1) inventory because the habit of substitution would not be as frequent (Flege, 2005). The research that will be attempted will try to show how with more experience as a French student, students will be able to form a separate category for the high fronted close /y/, regardless of how close it is to its American English counterpart /u/, or the predictions set forth by the Learning Speech Model.