Age of acquisition and proficiency in a second language independently influence the perception of non-native speech

PILAR ARCHILA-SUERTE ^[1] ; JASON ZEVIN ^[2] ; FERENC BUNTA ^[1] ; ARTURO E. HERNANDEZ ^[1]
1. [1] University of Houston
  
  University of Houston
  
  Estados Unidos
2. [2] Cornell University
  
  Cornell University
  
  City of Ithaca, Estados Unidos
Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 15, Nº 1, 2012 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment), págs. 190-201
Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
- Sensorimotor processing in children and higher-cognitive processing in adults could determine how non-native phonemes are acquired. This study investigates how age-of-acquisition (AOA) and proficiency-level (PL) predict native-like perception of statistically dissociated L2 categories, i.e., within-category and between-category. In a similarity task, participants rated the level of similarity between pairs of English syllables from 1 (similar) to 4 (dissimilar). Early L2 acquisition predicts accurate within-categorization and high proficiency in late L2 acquisition predicts improved between-categorization. Our results suggest that the manner in which bilinguals learn to categorize non-native sounds depends on the cognitive processes available at the age of L2 exposure.