Predicting perceptual success with segments: a test of Japanese speakers of Russian

Abstract

A perception experiment involving a novel language pairing, that of Japanese as a first language (L1) and Russian as a second language (L2), was conducted with 33 Japanese learners of Russian to determine whether two phonological models could successfully predict patterns of perceptual difficulty with eight Russian segments.The Featural Model of L2 Perception (based on Brown, 1997) predicts that learners will only be able to accurately perceive those segments that are composed of features which are used in the (underspecified) L1 featural pool. Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model predicts that ‘new’ phones will eventually be acquired, but ‘similar’ phones will remain problematic. The former more adequately explained the data than the latter, and was also shown to more successfully predict difficulties than phonetic or phonemic status of the segments. Thus, this experiment further clarifies what factors affect the segmental perception of an L2 and why learners from the same L1 background often have similar perceptual ‘accents’. The success of the Featural Model in explaining perceptual success indicates that adult language learners are restricted by universal constraints and processes of natural language systems.

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