THE EFFECTS OF PHONETIC DISTANCE, LEARNING CONTEXT AND LEARNER PROFICIENCY ON L2 PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH LIQUIDS Sally Chen and Janice Fon National Taiwan University {d93142002,jfon}@ntu.edu.tw ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the effects of phonetic distance, learning context and learner proficiency on L2 perception of English liquids. Reaction time difference between the pre- and post-tests was analyzed. Results showed that the natural context induced the most progress for participants of a lower L2 proficiency level, while no preference was shown for those of a higher proficiency level. In general, L2 learners showed more progress for liquids occurring in novel phonotactic structures. Phone effect was significant only when L2 learners of lower proficiency perceived liquids in the singleton position. Keywords: L2 perception, phonetic distance, learning context, SLM, PAM. 1. INTRODUCTION Perception of unfamiliar L2 sounds has always been an obstacle that learners of the language have to strive to conquer. Both the speech learning model (SLM) [9, 10] and the perceptual assimilation model (PAM) [2, 4, 5] predict the degree of success listeners have in perceiving nonnative sounds is based on the perceived phonetic distance between L1 and L2 sounds. The two models differ in that the SLM focuses on the aspect of L2 learning, while the PAM is established on the fact that some foreign sounds are harder to perceive than others [12]. Regarding language contrasts, the SLM proposes that the greater the perceived dissimilarity between an L2 sound and its closest L1 counterpart, the more likely a new category is to be formed for the L2 sound [9, 10, 12]. Modeling from another perspective, the PAM proposes that sounds in a foreign language are perceived in accordance with their similarities to the closest native language sounds articulatorily [2, 4, 5, 12]. When two sounds are assimilated to two different categories, the perceptual performance is expected to be good. However, when two sounds are assimilated to one single category, the performance will be unsatisfactory [16]. In addition, based on a logic similar to the Native Language Magnet theory [14, 15], when two sounds are assimilated to the same category, it is believed that in cases where only one of the two sounds is regarded as a good exemplar of that target category, the performance will be much better than in those where both sounds are regarded as comparable candidates for the same target category [12]. 2. AIMS OF THE STUDY There are three specific aims of this study. The first is to examine the effect of phonetic distance. The two English liquids, /l/ and /r/, impose differential levels of difficulty on Mandarin speakers [7]. The former has a closer counterpart in Mandarin than the latter ([l] vs. []). According to the SLM, this would predict that L2 listeners are more likely to form perceptual categories for /r/ than for /l/. On the other hand, according to the PAM, both categories should be perceived equally well. This study investigates which model better interprets the perception of English liquids by Mandarin speakers of English. The second aim is to investigate the effect of learning contexts. In Taiwan, the audiolingual method is used very often. Students learn new words and sentences by repeating after the instructor, often without contexts. However, in recent years, more and more EFL instructors, especially those outside the regular school system, are using some combination of language immersion strategies [6], believing that this can promote greater success in L2 learning. Therefore, it would be interesting to see whether the presentation method of the stimuli affects L2 sound perception. Finally, this study looks into the effect of speaker proficiency. As listening is not a skill that ICPhS XVI ID 1526 Saarbrücken, 6-10 August 2007 www.icphs2007.de 1721