Production of the vowel contrast /ӕ/ vs /ꓥ/ by Early and Late learners of English

Abstract

[eng] This dissertation aims to seek differences between the pronunciation of Early learners and Late learners that are native speakers of Spanish and Catalan and are learning English as their L2. Moreover, the question that this study will answer is if, apart from the age of acquisition factor, input helped Late learners to achieve a native-like pronunciation. The main hypothesis is that Early learners can achieve a native-like pronunciation, due to the Critical Period Hypothesis, as they have started learning English at the age of three. In order to see if there were differences between the two groups and that not only Early learners pronounce better, i.e. in a native like way, but also if input aided Late learners in helping them achieve a native like pronunciation, a study was carried out. This study consisted in taking two groups of five students each: one that started learning English at the age of three (group one) and another one that started studying later one (group 2) Both groups were tested on the productions of the phonemes /ӕ/ and /ꓥ/. The productions of the students were then assessed by judges that gave them a score of 1 to 7 on a Likert Scale depending on how native their pronunciation was. The analysis of the data demonstrated that at first, when comparing both groups, there were not many differences in the production of the above-mentioned vowel contrast. To find more differences a subdivision of participants specially concerning the group of Late learners was made (as in the Late learners group there were two experienced learners whose production was native-like due to the amount of input they received) In this subdivision it was also found that early learners’ production was better specially when pronouncing the /ꓥ/ vowel, although not native-like. In conclusion, the initial hypothesis that Early learners pronounced this vowel contrast in a native-like way might be rejected, as results show that, in general, they did not achieve a native-like pronunciation except for two participants. It has to be said that, although pronunciation is not native-like, it is better than that of the Late learners.