Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Second language learners experience difficulty distinguishing phonemic contrasts that do not occur in their native language. In this study we investigated the effect of providing Japanese speakers with a semantic context when identifying /r/s and /l/s in English words. Questions addressed were: (1) whether semantic context improves performance; and (2) if context helps, whether the written or spoken context is most helpful. Japanese speakers participated in a two alternative forced-choice identification task in which participants identified words they heard by choosing one of two words contrasting in /r/ and /l/. Words were presented either: (a) in isolation; or (b) within contextual sentences in a variety of written and spoken forms. Preliminary results show that Japanese speakers’ identification accuracy of the /r/–/l/ contrast was significantly better when words containing the contrast were presented in contextual sentences than when they were presented in isolation. The amount of improvement in performance was almost equal, whether the context was provided in written or spoken form, or a combination of thereof. These results suggest that a semantic context, both written and spoken, helps second language learners’ identification of difficult phonemic contrasts. Implications of this work on second language learning will be discussed. [Work supported by TAO, Japan.]</jats:p>