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Article published In:
Journal of Second Language Studies
Vol. 1:1 (2018) ► pp.166–198

The use of lexical and sublexical cues in speech segmentation by second language learners of English

| University of Southern California | University of Maryland, College Park
| University of Southern California | University of Maryland, College Park
This study examined the use of lexical and sublexical cues in speech segmentation by Mandarin L2 learners of English, focusing on two types of lexical cue, lexical knowledge and semantic relatedness, and three coda (sublexical) cues, /n, s, ŋ/ due to their varying phonotactic probabilities in Mandarin and English. Thirty-five native English speakers and 30 L2 learners participated in two experiments. Experiment 1 showed that learners were able to use lexicality as a cue to segment L2 speech. The lexicality effect significantly interacted with L2 proficiency. Experiment 2 showed that learners did not use semantic cues to the same extent as native listeners did. All participants experienced more difficulty with word boundary identification preceded by /s/. This difficulty may stem from weak allophonic cues of /s/ in English. L2 learners with better proficiency may be better at recognizing familiar words from continuous speech, thus more efficiently utilizing the lexicality cue.
Keywords: speech segmentation, lexical knowledge, semantic relatedness, Mandarin, second language acquisition
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The use of lexical cues in native segmentation
  • The use of phonotactic cues in native segmentation
  • The use of phonotactic cues in the segmentation of nonnative speech
  • The use of lexical and semantic cues in the segmentation of nonnative speech
  • The current study
  • Experiment 1: Phonotactic cues versus lexical knowledge
    • Participants
    • Materials and design
    • Procedure
    • Results and discussion
  • Experiment 2: Phonotactic cues versus semantic cues
    • Participants
    • Materials and design
    • Procedure
    • Results and discussion
  • General discussion
  • Conclusion
  • References


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Published online: 7 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jsls.17017.lin
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