Native Italian speakers' perception and production of English vowels

This study examined the production and perception of English vowels by high ly experienced native Italian speakers of English. The subjects were select ed on the basis of the age at which they arrived in Canada and began to lea rn English, and how much they continued to use Italian. Vowel production ac curacy was assessed through an intelligibility test in which native English -speaking listeners attempted to identify vowels spoken by the native Itali an:subjects. Vowel perception was assessed using a categorial discriminatio n test. The later in life the: native Italian subjects began to learn Engli sh, the less accurately they produced and perceived English vowels. Neither of two groups of early Italian/English bilinguals differed significantly f rom native speakers of English either for production or perception. This fi nding is consistent with the hypothesis of the speech learning model [Flege , in Speech Perception mid Linguistic Experience: Theoretical ann Methodolo gical Issues (York, Timonium, MD, 1995)] that early bilinguals establish ne w categories for vowels found in the second language (L2). The significant correlation observed to exist between the measures of L2 vowel production a nd perception,is consistent with another hypothesis of the speech learning model, viz., that the accuracy with which L2 vowels are produced is limited by how accurately they are perceived. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of Ameri ca. [S0001-4965(99)04711-6].