Lexical and Phonetic Influences on the Phonolexical Encoding of Difficult Second-Language Contrasts: Insights From Nonword Rejection.

ABSTRACT: Establishing phonologically robust lexical representations in a second language (L2) is challenging, and even more so for words containing phones in phonological contrasts that are not part of the native language. This study presents a series of additional analyses of lexical decision data assessing the phonolexical encoding of English /ε/ and /æ/ by German learners of English (/æ/ does not exist in German) in order to examine the influence of lexical frequency, phonological neighborhood density and the acoustics of the particular vowels on learners' ability to reject nonwords differing from real words in the confusable L2 phones only (e.g., *l[æ]mon, *dr[ε]gon). Results showed that both the lexical properties of the target items and the acoustics of the critical vowels affected nonword re

SUBMITTER: Llompart M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8200638 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature