2026-04-18T07:34:20Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:2072/4633332026-03-13T10:25:04Zcom_2072_98col_2072_378192

When the Easy Becomes Difficult : Factors Affecting the Acquisition of the English /iː/-/ɪ/ Contrast Cebrian, Juli Gorba, Celia Gavaldà Ferre, Nuria Vowel contrast L2 perception L2 production Cross-linguistic similarity Individual variation The degree of similarity between the sounds of a speaker's first and second language (L1 and L2) is believed to determine the likelihood of accurate perception and production of the L2 sounds. This paper explores the relationship between cross-linguistic similarity and the perception and production of a subset of English vowels, including the highly productive /iː/-/ɪ/ contrast (as in "beat" vs. "bit"), by a group of Spanish/Catalan native speakers learning English as an L2. The learners' ability to identify, discriminate and produce the English vowels accurately was contrasted with their cross-linguistic perceived similarity judgements. The results showed that L2 perception and production accuracy was not always predicted from patterns of cross-language similarity, particularly regarding the difficulty distinguishing /iː/ and /ɪ/. Possible explanations may involve the way the L2 /iː/ and /ɪ/ categories interact, the effect of non-native acoustic cue reliance, and the roles of orthography and language instruction. 2021 Article Agencia Estatal de Investigación FFI2017-88016-P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-34 Frontiers in Communication ; Volume 6 (June 2021) open access Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/