Squib published In: Journal of Second Language Pronunciation
Vol. 12:1 (2026) ► pp.131–145
Brief report
Minimal effects of L2 phonetic training on non‑naïve learners’ perception of cross‑linguistic similarity
Minimal effects of training on perceived similarity
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Published online: 18 December 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.25055.ceb
https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.25055.ceb
Abstract
Accuracy of L2 categorization is linked to the degree of perceived similarity between L1 and L2 categories. The
effectiveness of high variability phonetic training in improving L2 perception is widely reported. Still, the effect of training
on cross-linguistic perceived similarity is largely unexplored. Thirty-eight Catalan/Spanish bilingual learners of English
underwent L2 vowel identification and discrimination training and were tested on their perceptual assimilation of English vowels.
Although perceptual training improved both vowel identification and discrimination, training generally did not affect
cross-linguistic perceived similarity. The only exception was a tendency for English /ɪ/ to show a decrease in assimilations to
Spanish /e/ and an increase in assimilations to Spanish /i/, possibly as a result of enhanced metalinguistic knowledge about the
target language. Longer training regimes or different types of tasks or stimuli may be necessary to influence the perception of
cross-linguistic similarity.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Methodology
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Stimuli
- 2.3Procedure
- 3.Results
- 4.Discussion and conclusions
- Note
References
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