Magdalena Wrembel

L2-accented speech in L3 production

Abstract The paper is aimed at investigating the sources of cross-linguistic influence in the third language (L3) phonology, and, particularly, the impact of the second language (L2) on the phonological acquisition of another foreign language. The study consisted in foreign accent judgements performed by a group of expert judges who were presented with recorded samples of L3 English. The findings confirm the results of some previous studies on the phenomenon of ‘L2 status’ and demonstrate a tendency for the L2 phonological transfer in L3 production at the initial stages of acquisition that decreases with growing third language proficiency.

On Hearing Colours - Cross-Modal Associations in Vowel Perception in a Non-Synaesthetic Population

On Hearing Colours — Cross-Modal Associations in Vowel Perception in a Non-Synaesthetic Population The present study is a continuation of previous investigations into the nature of sound—colour associations in a non-synaesthetic population conducted on English and Polish vowel sound systems and it aims at providing further evidence for the non-arbitrary nature of cross-modal mappings. The experiment1 was run on a specially designed computer program and involved 90 participants who were asked to match randomised auditory stimuli (12 English vowel sounds recorded in 2 conditions: in isolation and in a CVC context) with one of 11 basic colours (red, yellow, green, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, black, white and grey) presented as coloured rectangles on a computer screen. The program kept record of the colour choice and reaction time of the participants, who fell into 2 groups with respect to the level of their language proficiency and phonetic awareness. An analysis of the results revealed statistically significant interactions between specific colours and individual vowel sounds for all 12 English vowels examined in the combined analysis; for 10 vowels in Condition 1 (isolated auditory stimuli) and for 7 vowels in Condition 2 (stimuli in the CVC context). A group effect was not found to be significant as far as the quality of mappings was concerned; however, in the case of reaction times the less advanced learners took significantly longer to assign colours to sounds in context. The findings indicate that vowel—sound mappings in non-synaesthetic perception appear non-arbitrary and follow the general tendencies in which bright colours (yellow, green) are associated with high front vowel sounds, whereas dark colours (brown, blue, black) are attributed to back vowels, while open sounds tend to be perceived as red and central vowels are mapped onto achromatic grey.

Metaphonological awareness in multilinguals: a case of L3 Polish

The paper focuses on an unexplored area of metalinguistic awareness in the acquisition of third language (L3) phonology, hereafter referred to as metaphonological awareness. It addresses the role of attention and noticing in input processing. The contribution constitutes a part of a larger scale project on metaphonological awareness in various multilingual settings investigated through the application of stimulated recall verbal protocols. The study involved quasi-concurrent retrospective and introspective protocols, in which the participants were asked to attend to, modify, and comment on their phonological output in L3 Polish after listening to an excerpt of their previous text reading recording. The investigation aimed to explore qualitative and quantitative aspects of metaphonological awareness manifested through the participants’ self-repair and modifications of pronunciation mistakes in L3 Polish, reflective metalinguistic analysis of their oral performance in L3, intentional focus on articulatory gestures, self-awareness of problems in L3 pronunciation, the level of metacognitive control, and comments on the pronunciation learning process. Explored from a multilingual perspective, the construct of metaphonological awareness was demonstrated to entail an interaction of metalinguistic awareness as well as cross-linguistic awareness and to be an essential component of multilingual competence.

Sound Symbolism in Foreign Language Phonological Acquisition

Sound Symbolism in Foreign Language Phonological Acquisition The paper aims at investigating the idea of a symbolic nature of sounds and its implications for in the acquisition of foreign language phonology. Firstly, it will present an overview of universal trends in phonetic symbolism, i.e. non-arbitrary representations of a phoneme by specific semantic criteria. Secondly, the results of a preliminary study on different manifestations of sound symbolism including emotionally-loaded representations of phonemes and other synaesthetic associations shall be discussed. Finally, practical pedagogical implications of sound symbolism will be explored and a number of innovative classroom activities involving sound symbolic associations will be presented.

Phonetics/phonology in third language acquisition: Introduction

This special issue provides a state-of-the-art overview of the theories, models and research methodology in the phonological acquisition of a third language (L3). The present contributions have been selected from a number of papers given at a satellite workshop of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), which was held at the University of Freiburg (Germany) from 3 to 4 August 2007 and was organised by Ulrike Gut (now Augsburg), Grit Mehlhorn (Leipzig) and Magdalena Wrembel (Poznań). Its aim was to explore new methods and fresh theoretical input for investigating and modelling third language phonological acquisition. The field of L3 acquisition research is a very young discipline in linguistics and one that is still struggling with terminological difficulties and inconsistencies. There is as yet not even an agreed definition of the term ‘third language’ (see De Angelis, 2007, pp. 8 12). Research on L3 acquisition was sparked off by the growing empirical evidence for and the recognition of the fact that the acquisition process of a foreign language is systematically different depending on whether another foreign language has previously been learned or not. Thus, the term ‘third language’ is typically used to stress the differences between ‘second’ (L2) and ‘further’ language acquisition and is often used to refer to any language acquired after a ‘second language’ has been learned, however imperfectly. In order not to exclude a speaker’s fourth, fifth, etc. language, De Angelis (2007, p. 11) favours the somewhat longer and more awkward term ‘Third or Additional Language Acquisition’ for this phenomenon. The papers in this special issue, although using the shorter terms ‘third language’ or ‘L3’, share the common definition of L3 acquisition as being distinct from L2 acquisition due to the availability of prior linguistic knowledge and language learning experience. So far, research on phonology and phonetics in Third or Additional Language Acquisition has been very limited in scope. Current theories and the few extant empirical investigations of the acquisition of the phonology of a foreign language focus primarily on the influence of the native language on the acquisition of a second language or a third language and typically conceptualise this influence as a limiting and restricting factor based on negative transfer and interference. Positive effects of previously learned languages such as already acquired meta-linguistic competence and the application of specific learner strategies gained in L2 acquisition to L3 learning have as yet remained largely unexplored. Three of the papers in this special issue present research on the question whether the L2 exerts a positive influence onto the L3 and explore which factors might facilitate this kind of positive transfer. Ulrike Gut investigates possible sources and directions of cross-linguistic influence in the phonologies of four trilingual speakers in her contribution ‘Cross-linguistic influence in L3 phonological acquisition’. Focussing on vowel reduction and speech rhythm in L3 English and L3 German, she finds conflicting evidence for L2 L3 cross-linguistic influence. Her data suggest International Journal of Multilingualism Vol. 7, No. 1, February 2010, 1 3

Foreign Accent Ratings in Third Language Acquisition: The Case of L3 French

The present paper constitutes a part of a larger-scale project aimed at investigating the sources and directions of cross-linguistic influence in the phonological acquisition of a third language. To this end, foreign accent ratings were performed on a pool of speech samples of L3 French recorded by L1 Polish subjects, proficient in L2 English, with different competence levels in French. The perceptual judgements of L3 French, performed online by expert raters, involved the ratings of accent, intelligibility, acceptability and confidence level as well as the identification of the subjects’ L1. The study revealed interesting patterns of correspondence between different rating parameters, and demonstrated a high level of inter-rater consistency. The findings pointed to the multilingual subjects’ first language as the prevailing source of cross-linguistic influence in the phonological acquisition of an L3, however, the L2 influence was also found to be considerable, judging on the basis of the raters’ identification of the subjects’ L1. The results appear to be consistent with the assumption of a combined cross-linguistic influence (cf. De Angelis, Third or additional language acquisition. Multilingual matters, Clevedon, 2007) thus substantiating the existence of both native and non-native interference in L3 phonology, although its strength is hypothesised to be dependent on the typological relatedness of the respective language combinations.

Investigating the Acquisition of Phonology in a Third Language--A State of the Science and an Outlook for the Future.

There is growing recognition that multilingualism is a norm rather than an exception and that it constitutes a default state of human linguistic competence. This phenomenon has become particularly ...

Interactions between three phonological subsystems of young multilinguals: the influence of language status

ABSTRACT This study examines the interactions between three vocalic subsystems of multilingual speakers and explores the role language status might play in explaining variability across them. Eight 14-year-olds raised in Germany, who had learnt English at school for 6 years and Polish for 1 year, participated in the study. They were divided into three groups: children of German parents, children with one Polish-speaking parent but with German as the main home language, and children with two Polish-speaking parents and Polish as their main home language. The young multilinguals read a word list and performed a delayed repetition task in all their languages, with both tasks containing tokens of /i, ɪ, u, ʊ, ϵ, æ/. The results show a great degree of individual variability in the production of the vowels in all three languages and point to language status as one factor shaping the phonological subsystems of these multilinguals. The findings are interpreted within the framework of the Dynamic Systems Theory.

Color studies in applied psychology and social sciences: An overview

Abstract Our article presents a comprehensive overview of studies on colour from the perspective of applied psychology and social sciences. It discusses major findings from the psychology of colour applied to marketing, business, politics and sports as well as to problems connected with using color tests in psychological diagnoses. Moreover, we present an overview of particularly interesting colour studies on synaesthesia related to cognitive and applied psychology as well as psycholinguistics. Finally, we discuss the most recent trends in investigations into applied colour psychology as well as potential directions for further research. Streszczenie Artykuł stanowi szczegółowy przegląd przeprowadzonych badań nad kolorem z perspektywy psychologii stosowanej i nauk społecznych. Omówione zostały główne wyniki badań dotyczących psychologii koloru z zakresu marketingu, biznesu, polityki i sportu jak i problemy związane z zastosowaniem testów kolorów w diagnozie psychologicznej. Ponadto analizie zostały poddane szczególnie interesujące studia nad synestezją z zakresu koloru będące na pograniczu psychologii kognitywnej i stosowanej jak i psycholingwistyki. Artykuł poglądowy kończy prezentacja najnowszych trendów w psychologii koloru oraz dyskusja dotycząca kierunków dalszych badań.

Teaching to suppress Polglish processes

Advanced second language (henceforth L2) learners in a formal setting can suppress many first language (henceforth L1) processes in L2 pronunciation when provided with sufficient exposure to L2 and meta competence (see Sect. 4 for a definition of this term). This paper shows how imitation in L2 teaching can be enhanced on the basis of current phonetic research and how complex allophonic processes such as nasal vocalization and glottal stop insertion can be suppressed using “repair”—a method of providing learners with adequate input, so that they can use the L1 processes to improve L2 pronunciation.