The perception of English vowels by native Korean and Mandarin speakers

Second language learners often experience difficulties discriminating L2 contrasts absent in their L1. Theoretical frameworks, (e.g., SLM, PAM, L2LP), make predictions about the acquisition of L2 phonemes based on the existence of equivalent or similar L1 phonemes, but do not explicitly consider the extent of L1 allophonic variability as a contributing factor. The present study compared the perceptual discrimination of English contrasts /ɪ-i/ and /ɛ-æ/ by learners with Mandarin and Korean L1 backgrounds. Both languages have only one L1 phoneme for the two relevant L2 contrasts. Furthermore, Mandarin ɛ is an allophone of the highly variable mid vowel phoneme /E/, while Korean /ɛ/ lacks this variability. Allophonic variability may condition learners to accept diverse vowel qualities as acceptable renditions of the corresponding phoneme, therefore lowering their discriminability. In an AX perceptual discrimination task, 16 Standard Mandarin and 14 Korean speakers were similar in their discrimination of the /ɪ-i/ vowels, but, as predicted, the Mandarin group was less accurate for the /ɛ-æ/ pairs. These findings suggest that allophonic variability in the L1 needs to be considered when making theory-driven predictions concerning the acquisition of specific phonological categories.