TY - CHAP
T1 - Language Transfer vs. Language Talent? Individual differences and aptitude in L2 phonology of Persian-speaking learners of English
T2 - A study with Persian native speakers of L2 English
AU - Ghafoorian Maddah, Zhaleh
AU - Reiterer, Susanne Maria
A2 - Ameringer, Victoria
A2 - Reiterer, Susanne M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Only little research regarding the phonology of Persian native speakers’ English has been conducted. In the present study, we compared different individual cognitive factors which result in ESL Iranian English pronunciation, such as cognitive ability and short-term memory (working memory and Llama_D), language aptitude (MLAT III, IV and V; Llama_D) and working memory (Tewes U, Hamburg-Wechsler-Intelligenz-Test für Erwachsene Revision. HAWIE-R, Bern, 1994). These measures were correlated with English pronunciation and phonetic measurements (vowel length measurement) of Persian ESL learners. The sample comprised 30 Iranians aged 20–40 years (mean age 26.08) with L1 Farsi and an academic education. Their age of onset of learning (AOA) ranged from 2 to 16 years (mean age 11.03). Three learner groups were identified based on their language proficiency, and results confirmed previous findings about the contribution of cognitive factors (Rota G, Reiterer SM, Cognitive aspects of pronunciation talent. In: Dogil G, Reiterer S (eds) Language talent and brain activity. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 67–96, 2009), language aptitude and multilingualism in L2 phonological processing. We observed significant correlations between English pronunciation scores and these three factors: schwa length pronunciation (r = −0.8), MLAT III (r = 0.8) and working memory (r = 0.78). Schwa length pronunciation also correlated highly with the number of languages (r = −.74) and the age of onset of acquisition (r = .41). Our cross-linguistic results suggest that phonological native-like L2 achievement in ESL adult learners is possible, as individuals with higher L2 aptitude and working memory capacity can overcome the transfer of L1 phonological categories in L2 processing.
AB - Only little research regarding the phonology of Persian native speakers’ English has been conducted. In the present study, we compared different individual cognitive factors which result in ESL Iranian English pronunciation, such as cognitive ability and short-term memory (working memory and Llama_D), language aptitude (MLAT III, IV and V; Llama_D) and working memory (Tewes U, Hamburg-Wechsler-Intelligenz-Test für Erwachsene Revision. HAWIE-R, Bern, 1994). These measures were correlated with English pronunciation and phonetic measurements (vowel length measurement) of Persian ESL learners. The sample comprised 30 Iranians aged 20–40 years (mean age 26.08) with L1 Farsi and an academic education. Their age of onset of learning (AOA) ranged from 2 to 16 years (mean age 11.03). Three learner groups were identified based on their language proficiency, and results confirmed previous findings about the contribution of cognitive factors (Rota G, Reiterer SM, Cognitive aspects of pronunciation talent. In: Dogil G, Reiterer S (eds) Language talent and brain activity. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 67–96, 2009), language aptitude and multilingualism in L2 phonological processing. We observed significant correlations between English pronunciation scores and these three factors: schwa length pronunciation (r = −0.8), MLAT III (r = 0.8) and working memory (r = 0.78). Schwa length pronunciation also correlated highly with the number of languages (r = −.74) and the age of onset of acquisition (r = .41). Our cross-linguistic results suggest that phonological native-like L2 achievement in ESL adult learners is possible, as individuals with higher L2 aptitude and working memory capacity can overcome the transfer of L1 phonological categories in L2 processing.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146625168&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91917-1_19
DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91917-1_19
M3 - Chapter
SN - 978-3-319-91916-4
VL - 16
T3 - English Language Education
SP - 363
EP - 388
BT - Exploring Language Aptitude: Views from Psychology, the Language Sciences, and Cognitive Neuroscience
PB - Springer
CY - Cham
ER -