The effect of experience on the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast Ellen Simon ⇑ , Tijs D’Hulster Ghent University, Muinkkaai 42, 9000 Ghent, Belgium article info Article history: Received 22 December 2010 Received in revised form 7 July 2011 Accepted 15 October 2011 Available online 22 November 2011 Keywords: Experience Instruction L2 phonology Vowels SLM PAM abstract This study examines the effect of second language experience on the acquisition of the Eng- lish vowel contrast /e/–/æ/ by native speakers of Dutch. It reports on the results of produc- tion and perception tasks performed by three groups of native Dutch learners of English in Belgium, differing in experience with English, as measured through study choice and progress. Whereas experience has often been defined in terms of ‘Age of Acquisition’ or ‘Length of Residence’ in studies on L2 immersion in, for instance, immigrant settings, in tra- ditional foreign language contexts experience needs to be defined in terms of amount of instruction and (non-)naturalistic exposure. The results revealed an asymmetry in produc- tion and perception: all learners seemed to have created a new phonetic category for Eng- lish /æ/, but failed to phonetically implement it in a native-like way. No new category for the vowel /e/ was created, but learners who had opted for English studies at tertiary level produced a clear contrast between the two English vowels. All learner groups performed well on a discrimination and identification task involving the vowels /e/ and /æ/. The results are discussed in light of currently used speech learning theories, such as Flege’s Speech Learning Model (1987, 1995), Best’s Perceptual Assimilation Model for naı ¨ ve listeners (1995; Best et al., 2001) and its adaption for learners in an Second Language Acquisition context (Best and Tyler, 2007). It is argued that predictions formulated within these models also hold for learners in a Foreign Language Acquisition context. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction This study examines the effect of experience on the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast. A number of previous studies have investigated the role of experience in the acquisition of second language (L2) phonology. However, by far the majority of these studies have dealt with learners who were immersed in an L2 environment. Examples are Flege et al.’s (1997) study on German, Spanish, Mandarin and Korean learners of English in the US, Flege et al.’s (1999) research on Italian immigrants in Canada, and Tsukada et al.’s (2005) study on Korean immigrants in the US. In these studies, ‘L2 expe- rience’ is typically defined in terms of length of residence in the L2 country, age of arrival in the L2-speaking community, or a combination of these two factors. However, in contexts where the L2 is learnt as a foreign language, as is the case in tradi- tional ‘English as a Foreign Language’ (EFL) countries, such as most European countries (including Belgium, Germany, France, etc.), experience with the L2 cannot be measured in these terms. Rather, in such contexts a learner’s experience needs to be defined in terms of amount of formal instruction and/or naturalistic or non-naturalistic exposure. The present study hence deviates from previous studies in that it focuses on L2 speech learning in a Foreign Language Acquisition (FLA) context, in which the L2 in not the language of the community. Best and Tyler (2007: p. 19) point out that ‘‘FLA listeners, just like L2 listeners, but unlike monolinguals, have exposure to the target language. Yet unlike L2 listeners or monolinguals, FLA listen- ers have L2 exposure primarily through formal instruction in a restricted setting, with little or unsystematic conversational 0388-0001/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2011.10.002 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of English/Linguistics, Muinkkaai 42, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. Tel.: +32 9 331 32 77; fax: +32 9 264 41 79. E-mail addresses: Ellen.Simon@UGent.be (E. Simon), Tijs.Dhulster@UGent.be (T. D’Hulster). Language Sciences 34 (2012) 269–283 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Language Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci