Phonetic Awareness, Phonetic Sensitivity and the Second Language Learner
- PDF / 107,080 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 439.37 x 663.307 pts Page_size
- 47 Downloads / 269 Views
PHONETIC AWARENESS, PHONETIC SENSITIVITY AND THE SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNER
INTRODUCTION
A very large number of studies have shown that our speech perception abilities are shaped by the particular linguistic environment or input we are exposed to. According to many authors, learning to read and write, that is, exposure to written input, for example, helps us to become more attentive to individual sound segments. In the literature, the ability to focus attention on sound segments is often discussed by using terms like phonetic or phonological awareness. These two terms, whose scope is discussed in the first part of this chapter, appear to be used to refer to rather attentive or conscious processing of speech. As the second part of this chapter shows, it seems reasonable to distinguish terms like phonetic or phonological awareness from phonetic or phonological sensitivity. This is because the results of speech perception research indicate that long before children learn to read and write and begin to show a greater awareness of speech as a sequence of sound segments, they develop a high degree of sensitivity to those speech contrasts that are used for distinctive purposes in their first or native language (L1). At the same time, their ability to perceive nonnative or second language (L2) speech contrasts is attenuated. The third part of this chapter exclusively focuses on second language learners and variables that have been found to have a strong influence on their production of L2 sounds. The chapter is concluded by relating the findings of L1 and L2 research to the foreign language classroom. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S : P H O N E T I C A WA R E N E S S
The literature on language awareness does not clearly distinguish between phonetic awareness and phonological awareness. Often the two terms appear to be used almost synonymously. On the basis of a literature review, García Lecumberri (2001, p. 238), for example, concludes that “(Meta-)phonetic awareness can be described as the ability to reflect on and manipulate the sounds and sound system of a language independently of function and meaning [. . .].” Nicholson (1997, p. 53) provides a similar definition of phonological awareness, which he describes as a metalinguistic skill involving “the ability to reflect on J. Cenoz and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 6: Knowledge about Language, 155–166. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
156
THORSTEN PISKE
and manipulate the sound components of spoken words”. As pointed out by García Lecumberri (2001), it would of course be possible to more clearly differentiate phonological from phonetic awareness. She suggests that the term phonological awareness could be used to refer to awareness of the contrastive units of a sound system including consonants and vowels as well as suprasegmentals such as syllables, stress and intonation. The term phonetic awareness, on the other hand, could be used to refer to awareness of more specific properties of sounds including awareness
Data Loading...
