VOCAL ATHLETES

Vocal athletes: Behavioural and brain bases for phonetic aptitude in monolingual and bilingual learners of a foreign language

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Many learners of a foreign language struggle to correctly pronounce newly-learned speech sounds so that they can be understood by native listeners. Yet many others achieve this with apparent ease. What is responsible for these large individual differences in phonetic aptitude? Are better speakers also better listeners? The aim of this proposal is to determine whether there is a link between skills in production and skills in perception in learners of a foreign language. A special focus of the research will be to compare bilingual with monolingual learners, because bilinguals have had more experience with linguistic variation than monolinguals, and therefore might have greater phonetic aptitude. Bridging traditional linguistic and newer cognitive neuroscience approaches, the proposed study will determine the behavioural and brain bases for phonetic production and perception abilities.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

The EU-funded VOCAL ATHLETES project conducted ground-breaking research to understand factors involved in phonetic aptitude. The approach involved studying non-native language production and perception differences in individuals.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

VOCAL ATHLETES researchers selected 40 people who are bilingual or monolingual to learn the Slovak language as a second language (L2). Using a three-session test, their ability to perceive and pronounce unfamiliar words was assessed.

Study results revealed large differences in individual learning performance, suggesting variation in motivation and phonetic aptitude. No correlation was found between native language (L1) skills and L2 perception and production performance, except for L1 mispronunciation affecting L2 production. However, two participants showed almost native speaker performance with L2, suggesting the need for larger-scale studies to accurately assess phonetic aptitude. The results did reveal it was possible to identify people with potential for acquiring multilingual skills during the initial stages of this study.

Based on study outcomes, 244 participants were enrolled in a larger study to identify causes for individual differences in phonetic aptitude. Bilingual speakers were found to have a minor advantage over monolinguals. There were issues with finding sufficient monolingual participants that was resolved by starting a new lab in a monolingual Spanish city for further testing.

To study areas of brain involved in L2 speech perception and production, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies are in progress. Participants with very high or very low performance from both monolingual and bilingual populations were included in this study.

Project outcomes should reveal the reason for differences in phonetic aptitude among individuals based on their behavioural and cognitive capacities.