An Investigation of Language-Specific and Orthographic Effects in L2 Arabic geminate production by Advanced Japanese- and English-speaking learners.

Research has indicated that second-language learners have difficulty producing geminates accurately. Previous studies have also shown an effect of orthography on second-language speech production. We tested whether the existence of a contrast in the first language phonology for length aids the second-language production of the same contrast. Furthermore, we examined the effect of exposure to orthographic input on geminate consonant production in a cross-script context. We tested the production of Arabic geminate-singleton stop consonants [/bː/-/b/, /tː/-/t/, /dː/-/d/, and /kː/-/k/], a nasal stop consonant /mː/-/m/, and an emphatic stop consonant /tˤː/-/tˤ/, as well as the effect of the diacritic used in Arabic to mark gemination in a delayed imitation task and two reading tasks (ortho-with diacritics and ortho-without diacritics). A comparison of the productions of advanced Japanese-speaking learners, English-speaking learners, and an Arabic control group showed that both learner groups were able to produce Arabic geminate stops; however, the Japanese-speaking learners exhibited an advantage over the English-speaking learners in the auditory-only task and in the presence of diacritics, highlighting the fact that orthographic effects may occur in some cross-script contexts.

Chinese-English bilinguals are more sensitive to environmental sound perception than Spanish-English bilinguals through top-down cognitive mechanism.

Sensitive perception to environmental sound is important for an individual's daily life since it helps in responding to the environment quickly and avoiding potential risks. It remains unclear, however, whether and how bilingual experiences with different native language backgrounds influence brain responses reflecting environmental sound perception. The present study compared Chinese-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals, and English monolinguals on their brain response to environmental sound perception and further examined its processing mechanism. The present study did not find the differences between English monolinguals and two bilingual groups on the environmental sound perception. However, we found that compared with Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals showed significantly larger mismatch negativity (MMN), indicating that Chinese-English bilinguals were more sensitive to the environmental sounds than that of Spanish-English bilinguals. Further, compared with Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals showed significantly larger theta oscillation. In addition, the theta oscillation is significantly correlated with MMN for Chinese-English bilinguals. The results indicated that the advantage of Chinese-English bilingual experience on environmental sound perception may be due to the enhanced top-down cognitive ability. In summary, these findings suggest that compared with the Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals showed an advantage in environmental sound perception via enhanced top-down cognitive modulation.

Second Language Immersion Experience Could Help the Brain Response to Second Language Reading for Native Chinese Speakers.

Native language background exerts constraints on the individual's brain automatic response while learning a second language. It remains unclear, however, whether second language immersion experience could help the brain overcome such constraints and meet the requirements of a second language. This study compared native Chinese speakers with English-as-a-second-language immersion experience (immersive English learners), native Chinese speakers without English-as-a-second-language immersion experience (nonimmersive English learners), and native English speakers with an ERP cross-modal MMN paradigm. The results found that English-as-a-second-language immersion could benefit speech perception for native Chinese speakers. In addition, both immersive English learners and native English speakers showed enhanced cross-modal MMN, indicating that second language immersion could help native Chinese speakers successfully integrate English letter-sound like native English speakers. The present study further revealed that English listening and speaking exposure in an immersive environment is important in English letter-sound integration for immersive English learners.

Auditory-orthographic integration at the onset of L2 speech acquisition.

Recent studies have provided evidence for both a positive and a negative effect of orthography on second language speech learning. However, not much is known about whether orthography can trigger a McGurk-like effect (McGurk & MacDonald, 1976) in second language speech learning. This study examined whether exposure to auditory and orthographic input may lead to a McGurk-like effect in naïve English-speaking participants learning a second language with Spanish phonology and orthography. Specifically, it reports on (a) production of non-target-like combinations such as [lj] as in [poljo] for -[pojo], where the auditory Spanish [j] and the first language English [l] that correspond to the shared digraph are integrated, and (b) fusion quantified in terms of [z] devoicing such as [zÌ¥apito] for -[zapito]. Moreover, the effects of (a) type of grapheme-to-sound correspondence, (b) position in the word, and (c) condition of training and testing were examined. Participants were assigned to four groups: (a) auditory only, (b) orthography at training and production, (c) orthography at training, and (d) orthography at production. The positions included word-initial and word-medial. The grapheme-to-sound correspondences consisted of -[b], -[δ], -[s] and -[j]. Results were indicative of a McGurk-like effect only for the Spanish digraph . The highest rate of combination productions was attested in the orthography-training condition in the word-medial position.