This study aims to explore if it is possible to form separate categories of aspirated voiceless stops in a second language, distinct from the equivalent categories in the native language, for native speakers of a language with an intermediate degree of aspiration, and if such category formation is eased by long-term exposure to another language in which aspirated voiceless stops exist. Two groups of adult native Japanese speakers who had lived in Sweden for a long and short time respectively were recorded when reading a list of sentences containing word-initial, utterance-medial /p t k/ in Japanese and English. Both groups produced higher VOT values for the English stops than for the Japanese stops. The results were significant for /t/ and /k/ and for the long-term residents' /p/, but not for the short-term residents' /p/, presumably because of a low number of tokens. The results are nevertheless interpreted as evident of the possibility of phonetic category formation even though there is only a small difference from the corresponding category in the native language. Since both groups had established new phonetic categories, degree of exposure to Swedish is interpreted as likely not to be a relevant factor.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-58417 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Ekelund, Martin |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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