Phonetic contrasts in foreign language perception: a neuropsychological study on Serbian affricates
نویسندگان
چکیده
This study addresses the question to which extent phonetic contrasts of a foreign language are perceived more easily by speakers of a native language that shares similar phonetic categories. The focus lies on two postalveolar and two alveolo-palatal affricates of Serbian: [t�] (postalveolar, voiceless), [�] (alveolo-palatal, voiceless), [�] (postalveolar, voiced) and [�] (alveolo-palatal, voiced). Swiss-German dialects have the postalveolar voiceless affricate [t�] only, while the Rhaeto-Romance variety of Sursilvan has three different affricates, i.e. [t�], [�], and [�]. In a EEG experiment using a Multi-Deviant Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm, 15 Swiss-German speaking adults and 15 Rhaeto-Romance speaking adults between the ages of 20 to 30 years were instructed to focus on a random reading while not paying attention to the auditory stimuli. The hypothesis is a significant difference in processing between the two groups: Swiss-German speakers will not be able to reliably distinguish the four Serbian affricates. Rhaeto-Romance speakers on the other hand are expected to be able to distinguish all four affricates as they share three of the four phonetic categories. A significant group-effect was found to corroborate that Rhaeto-Romance speakers process the Serbian affricates differently from the Swiss-German speakers. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-33273 Published Version Originally published at: Kaufmann, Nuria; Meyer, Martin; Schmid, Stephan (2010). Phonetic contrasts in foreign language perception: a neuropsychological study on Serbian affricates. In: Schmid, Stephan; Schwarzenbach, Michael; Studer, Dieter. La dimensione temporale del parlato. Torriana: EDK, 425-444.
منابع مشابه
Serbian affricates contrasts in foreign language perception investigated by means of a neurophysiological experiment
This study addresses the question to which extent phonetic contrasts of a foreign language are perceived more easily by speakers of a native language that shares similar phonetic categories. The focus lies on two post-alveolar and two palatal affricates of Serbian: [tʃ] (post-alveolar, voiceless), [ʨ] (alveolo-palatal, voiceless), [ʤ] (post-alveolar, voiced) and [ʥ] (alveolo-palatal, voiced). S...
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