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Article published In: Conceptual transfer, (re)conceptualisation and other cognitive aspects of crosslinguistic influence in L2 acquisition
Edited by Cecilia Gunnarsson-Largy
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 14:1] 2023
► pp. 75–105

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Crosslinguistic differences in initial word recognition

A comparative study of French learners of Polish and Arabic

ORCiD logo with link | Université Paris 8
 | Université Paris 8
 | The American University of Paris
 | Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Published online: 27 October 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.22017.maj
Abstract
The present article addresses the extent to which learners’ mental representations, in particular the phonological and lexical representations of learners’ background languages, influence their ability to perceive and extract linguistic units from a novel speech stream. In the study, native speakers of French were exposed to an unfamiliar language, either Polish or Modern Standard Arabic. A word recognition test taken at first exposure revealed important differences in how French speakers/listeners extract words from the Polish or Arabic speech stream, suggesting that source language representations work differently depending on the specificities of the target language. In addition to providing insights into the effects of source and target language properties on speech perception, these results contribute to on-going discussions about what constitutes crosslinguistic influence and conceptual transfer in second language acquisition research.
Résumé
Cet article examine dans quelle mesure les représentations mentales des apprenants, en particulier les représentations phonétiques, phonologiques et lexicales des langues sources des apprenants, influencent leur capacité à percevoir et à extraire des unités linguistiques d’un flux de parole nouveau. Dans cette étude, des locuteurs natifs du français ont été exposés à une langue inconnue, soit le polonais, soit l’arabe moderne standard. Une tâche de reconnaissance de mots effectuée au moment de la première exposition à la langue a révélé des différences importantes dans la façon dont les locuteurs/auditeurs français extraient les mots du flux de parole polonais ou arabe, ce qui suggère que les représentations de la langue source fonctionnent différemment selon les spécificités de la langue cible en cours d’apprentissage. En plus de fournir un aperçu des effets des propriétés de la langue source et de la langue cible sur la perception de la parole, ces résultats contribuent aux discussions en cours sur ce qui constitue l’influence interlinguistique et le transfert conceptuel dans les recherches sur l’acquisition d’une langue seconde.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background and previous studies
    • 2.1Conceptual transfer and crosslinguistic influence
    • 2.2Phonological representations
    • 2.3The role of lexical transparency in word recognition
    • 2.4Phonological features of SL French and TLs Polish and Arabic
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1The participants
    • 3.2The experimental procedure
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Overall score
    • 4.2Transparency score
    • 4.3Crosslinguistic differences
      • 4.3.1Category 1
      • 4.3.2Category 2
      • 4.3.3Category 3
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Transparency
    • 5.2Vocalic and consonantal systems
    • 5.3Syllabic structure and phoneme combination
    • 5.4Environment of the target word in the sentence
    • 5.5Summary and future research
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (43)
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