Enhancement of laryngeal contrasts in non-native English clear speech: a comparison between L2-immersed sequential bilinguals and L1-immersed speakers.

ABSTRACT: Clear speech, a speaking style used to mitigate communicative circumstances affecting the transmission or decoding of speech signal, often involves the enhancement of language-specific phonological contrasts, including laryngeal contrasts. This study investigates the role of language dominance in the implementation of language-specific laryngeal contrasts in L2 clear speech. Two groups of Korean-English speakers (L1 Korean) were tested: a relatively less Korean-dominant L2-immersed group of sequential bilinguals (N = 30) and a strongly Korean-dominant L1-immersed group (N = 30), with dominance assessed based on the results of the Bilingual Language Profile. Participants read a set of English minimal pairs differing in the voicing of word-initial stops (e.g., tab vs.

SUBMITTER: Jung YJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11428047 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature