Published Article

ABSTRACT

Cross-language research on adult speech perception demonstrates a strong effect of linguistic experience on consonant perception but not precisely on vowel perception. First, identification and goodness functions for the high front quadrant of the vowel space were mapped for speakers of Swedish, English, and Spanish. Second, speakers performed a discrimination task for one vector in this vowel space. Stimuli along this vector were identified by Swedish speakers as belonging to the Swedish front rounded vowel series/ç:/-/ö:/. However, English and Spanish speakers reported that the stimuli were not in their language. Significant differences in the discriminability of these stimuli were observed across speakers of different languages. When translators or interpreters have this level of language competence, they demonstrate the ability to communicate between languages using complex sentence structures, a high level of vocabulary, and the ability to describe concepts or words when they do not know the actual word or phrase. Our results show that linguistic experience plays a significant role in vowel discrimination.

KEYWORDS: Cross-language, Roles, Challenges and Adults