Does perception precede production in the initial stage of French nasal vowel quality acquisition by Japanese learners? A corpus-based discrimination experiment

This article presents the results of an AXB discrimination task testing the ability of Japanese beginner learners to distinguish three French nasal vowels /ɑ ̃ɔ ̃ɛ/̃ and compares them with the results of a corpus-based analysis of their production of the same vowels in two tasks (wordlist repetition and wordlist reading). This perception-production study is embedded in an ongoing 2-year longitudinal study in the framework of an international multi-task corpus-based research programme about the phonetic-phonological systems of non-native varieties of French. Our main results indicate first that the /ɑ/̃-/ɛ/̃ contrast is better perceived than the /ɑ/̃-/ɔ/̃ contrast and second that /ɛ/̃ obtains a lower discrimination rate when it is contrasted with /ɑ/̃, whereas no difference is found between /ɔ/̃ and /ɑ/̃. These findings are discussed in light of the production results and support the principle according to which perception precedes production in the acquisition of a new phonological contrast.