European languages education is under a rapid development in the evolving landscape of higher education in mainland China (Shen & Gao, 2019). However, these fast-growing programs also face a range of challenges (Han et al., 2019), among which L3 phonological acquisition is a newly emerging dynamic area. In Chinese universities, although most of the Spanish learners are L1 mandarin Chinese speakers with English being their L2, many students are also in frequent contact with local dialects in family and community, therefore, more attention should be paid to how dialects play a role in L3 learning. However, existing literature predominantly focuses only on L1 mandarin Chinese transfer in L3 Spanish learning, while dialect contact and L2 English learning experience are often neglected (Lu et al., 2022).
The current study investigates how Chinese dialect speakers acquiring L3 Spanish word-initial stop contrast, and discusses the influence of learners' linguistic experience on their L3 phonological acquisition. The participants in the study are 32 Chinese university students who speak Mandarin Chinese (N=15) or Wu dialect (N=17) as their L1, with English as their L2, and Spanish as their L3. Participants' perception and production of Spanish word-initial stops were measured by an L3 identification task, an L3 reading task, and an L2 reading task. The values and distribution of their voice onset time were analyzed using PRAAT to explore the perception and production of L3 word-initial stops and the influence of learners' dialect experience.
The results demonstrate that: (1) the phonetic similarity in different stop categories between L1, L2, and L3 contribute to learners' confusion in perception; and (2) it is easier for Wu dialect speakers to perceive L3 Spanish voiced stop consonants, although both groups of L3 learners produced a significantly lower proportion of negative VOTs for voiced stops than native speakers. These findings provide support for the Linguistic Proximity Model (Westergaard et al., 2017) and suggest that phonological acquisition takes place property by property based on structural linguistic similarities or universal physiological mechanisms. Pedagogical implications for L3 speech training are discussed based on the results.
Bibliography
Han, Y., Gao, X., & Xia, J. (2019). Problematising recent developments in non-English foreign language education in Chinese universities, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 40(7), 562-575.
Lu, X., Liu, J., & Zheng, Y. (2022). 双言双语背景下的西班牙语塞音感知习得研究: 方言差异性与习得普遍性, 语言学研究. 145-157.
Shen, Q., & Gao, X. (2019). Multilingualism and policy making in greater China: Ideological and implementational spaces. Language Policy, 18, 1-16.
Westergaard, M., Mitrofanova, N., Mykhaylyk, R., & Rodina, Y. (2017) Crosslinguistic influence in the acquisition of a third language: The Linguistic Proximity Model, International Journal of Bilingualism, 21, 666-682.
