17 Nasle|e 41 • 2018 • 17–26 Оригинални научни рад 811.111(73)'342.41 811.111(73)'355 Biljana B. Čubrović 1 Faculty of Philology University of Belgrade English Department THE ACQUISITION OF LOW BACK MERGER IN NON- NATIVE SPEAKERS OF AMERICAN ENGLISH Tis study deals with the acquisition of /ɔ/ (Eng. CAUGHT) and /ɑ/ (Eng. COT) by a group of 6 non-native speakers of American English of Serbian language background. Firstly, the acoustic analysis of F1 and F2 shows that most speakers in this study keep the contrast between the two vowels. Te vowel contrast exhibited by the participants of this study may be described as not as strong as in other studies concern- ing native speakers of American English. Tis new fnding applies to the native speakers of standard Serbian who are non-native speakers of American English. Secondly, the loss of the vowel contrast that is an attested change displayed by native speakers of North American English and usually referred to as a “low back merger” is also found in our cohort. Even though the low back merger was not formally taught to the non-native speakers that are participants of this study, some are shown to have absorbed the changes in the vocalic structure from their language community by adopting the vowel merger. Te acquisition of the low back merger brings the participants of this study closer to the phonetic habits of native speakers of American English. Keywords: low back merger, American English, Serbian, vowels, non-native. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most interesting American English (AE) sounds is / ɔ/ (Edwards 2003: 287). Many speakers do not use it and also have difculty in treating it as a distinctive sound. Articulatorily similar is a slightly lower vowel / ɑ/. Phonetic descriptions of the American English (AE) vowel inventory clas- sify both / ɔ/ and / ɑ/ as back and lax vowels, but these two vowels difer with regard to the relative position of the tongue. Te former is regarded as a mid vowel (or more precisely, a low-mid vowel), and the latter is realized as a low vowel (Yavaş 2011: 78–79). Tese two vowels seem to be undergoing changes in North American English. Some speakers neutralize these two vowels and merge them into one, whereas other speakers retain the vowel contrast. Tis vowel study deals with the realization of CAUGHT and COT vowels from the standpoint of non-native speakers of American English whose native language is standard Serbian. 1 biljana.cubrovic@fl.bg.ac.rs