Casual speech phonology and perception of further languages: The case of Latvian

Common sense tells us that we use what we (unconsciously) know about our first language to process further languages. The contribution of casual speech phonology has not been examined from this point of view. This paper looks at shared phonological processes of this type as possible aids to perception of L2 English. We proposed that complex syllable structure promotes casual speech reduction, as it leads to long consonant clusters, especially across word boundaries. English and Polish share this complexity, and L1 Polish speakers are good at perceiving casually-spoken English. However, while Latvian has a potential for complex syllables, it is not often realised, and as a result, English-type reductions are not evinced. We suggest that because Latvian does not share many casual speech processes with English, perception of English casual speech may be problematic. This is borne out by test results.